A group of ?sthetes—the women in the livery of Burne-Jones, the men in the satin small-clothes, velvet coat, and silk stockings affected by Wilde—stood before the great stone mantel in the octagonal drawing-room of Ordham, permitting the brilliant company to gaze upon them. The only celebrities present were the reigning professional beauty, that famous young politician who resembled an intellectual pug, and the great poet who looked like the reincarnation of Paris and Helen of Troy. The rest of the distinguished company scattered throughout the endless suites of state reception rooms were drawn from nearly every old family in the kingdom, and there were royalties, domestic and foreign. Mrs. Cutting and Lady Bridgminster had assembled these unrivalled house parties one after another, the former not only with a proud satisfaction, but with the complacent sense of fulfilling a patriotic duty, the latter with a keen relish in handling the income of millions as were it her very own.

Mabel, spared every detail, had only to dress herself exquisitely, sit at the head of the table in the dining room, or in a high abbot’s chair, carved and gilded, in one of the salons, look radiant, and chatter. She did all to perfection.

But these three notable figures, two with inexhaustible wardrobes from Paris, the other looking alternately like a Burne-Jones or a Rossetti, to say nothing of the magnificent rooms, now made richer and more inviting by a thousand subtle touches, were but a background for the young host. Never for a moment had Ordham been reminded that this lavish display, this recrudescence of the glory of his house, this skilful gathering of the most difficult people in England, had been accomplished with his wife’s money, not with his own delayed inheritance. He had heard of the unhappy fate of American husbands, but had quite forgotten that beyond the seas the world was woman’s. In this splendid company he was the legitimate host, the chief figure; several of the men that ruled the destinies of Britain might have had long and meaning conferences with “Lady Pat,” so subtly did they flatter and court him.

The natural modesty of his disposition was deftly overlaid by the as natural assurance of his birth and bringing up, for not only was he consulted, flattered, his judgment challenged that it might inevitably pronounce the last word, by these three women, until he felt older and more important every day, but his position as host threw him into intimate association with many of the most eminent men and women in England. And besides their friendship for Lady Pat, they were much impressed with the Aladdin-like, yet never vulgar, lavishness of these entertainments, and really found Ordham as charming and clever as people always did when he was on his good behaviour.

Nor did Ordham trouble himself to remember that all was not his. The first party was not over before he had slipped insensibly into the r?le of hereditary lord of the manor, forgotten the existence of his elder brother, or remembered him only to feel a passing relief that he need no longer wish him dead and experience that hateful demoralizing shame. Some of the guests were dull, notably the most important, but there were others whose conversation he found delightful; and the perpetual atmosphere of gayety, brilliancy, life, which now pervaded the castle, diverted his mind from the Continent. For not even in the old days, when his father had been a cabinet minister, had Ordham Castle known anything like this. The family rent-roll was large, but not inexhaustible. It was all very romantic, enchanting, and his self-love was mightily tickled. Had he come into his titles and estates upon the death of his father, he would have been less impressed no doubt; but after a long interval of petty financial annoyances, this sudden good fortune filled him with an abiding if complacent sense of enjoyment. One moment of humiliation and the work would have been undone. But if Mrs. Cutting and Mabel had not discovered the pride and sensitiveness in that complicated nature, there was always her ladyship to advise; and day by day the young man who had accomplished nothing, who had not even been chosen by destiny to succeed his father, was lifted higher and higher into that rarefied atmosphere where the nectar of flattery was ever at his lips, in goblets of gold fashioned to delight the artist within him. Mabel had even renounced the desire to remain uninterruptedly at Ordham for a year; they were to go to London as soon as she was no longer equal to house parties; her husband should continue to be amused in that capital he did not pretend to despise.

As for the chef at the castle, he had no rival in New York, and received a higher salary than the American Minister. The wages of the old servants were increased, and although they disapproved of alien blood, they were well content to see their idol in his rightful position. Nevertheless, they longed for the great day when this ancient domain should really be his, not rented with American dollars. They corresponded with a servant in the small household of the secluded Bridgminster and were not as impatient as they might otherwise have been. American wives were well enough, particularly when high-bred and inoffensive, but they wanted to see the Ordham coffers carried back to the castle.

But Ordham cast not a thought to the ancestral coffers, assisted perhaps by those water-tight compartments with which nature had endowed him, and more particularly when he strolled among his guests after dinner, discharging his duties as host with the zest of youth under his languid manner. It is true that the small and repeated doses of Americanism administered by Margarethe Styr lingered in his mental system, but they were kept sternly under. If once or twice they whispered that he was living on his wife’s fortune, he sharply reminded them that neither Mrs. Cutting nor Mabel could have assembled parties like this, and that, apparently, was all they lived for. Lady Bridgminster, although hospitable to celebrities and artists, when they knew how to behave themselves, was notoriously one of the most exclusive hostesses in the kingdom. “New people” had seldom found a permanent place on her visiting list, never unless they were foreigners. Mrs. Cutting, with her unerring social instinct, had recognized this fact during her first season in London, but although she had the good fortune to take her ladyship’s fancy, she would have been dropped in time had she proved of no material benefit. Nor could Lady Bridgminster have induced certain personages to come to an American woman’s house parties until this marriage of the daughter had placed her in a new and infinitely more important position. Of all this Ordham as a man of the world was fully conscious, but what he did not suspect was that his mother also was determined to keep him in England. Why the diplomatic career, now that he possessed the riches to which that was to have been but the stepping-stone? Nor would he have the same opportunities for magnificence on the Continent, certainly not for being of service to her distinguished self. He was kind and generous, but he had a habit of forgetting people when out of their range. And although he had immediately settled an income on herself, as well ............