Beyond the Rocks

And until the dressing-gong sounded, a continuous teuf-teuf-teuf might

have been heard as, one after another, the cars whizzed up to the door.

Of course, in a troop of over thirty people, naturally some had kind

hearts and good manners, but the prevailing tone of this coterie of

crème de la crème was one of pure selfishness and blunt and material

brutality.

If you were rich and suited them, you were given a nickname probably,

and were allowed to play cards with them, and lose your money for their

benefit. If you were non-congenial you did not exist--that was all. You

might be sitting in a chair, but they only saw it and an empty

space--you did not even cumber their ground.

To do them justice, they preferred people of their own exalted station;

outsiders seldom made their way into this holy of holies, however rich

they were--unless, of course, they happened to be Mildred's lovers. That

situation for a man held special prerogatives, and was greatly coveted

by pretenders to this circle of grace.

Intellectual intelligence was not important. Some of the women of this

select company had been described by an agricultural duke who had stayed

there as having just enough sense to come in out of the rain.

Sir Patrick Fitzgerald occasionally departed from the strict limits of

this set in the big parties--especially lately, when money was becoming

scarcer, several financial friends who could put him on to good things

had been included, the result being that Lady Harrowfield had not always

shed the light of her countenance upon the festivities.

Lord Harrowfield drew most of his income from a great, populous

manufacturing city in the north, so neither he nor his countess had need

to smile at mere wealth.

And Lady Harrowfield had said, frankly, "Let me know if it is a utility

party, Patrick, or for just ourselves, because if you are going to have

these creatures I sha'n't come."

This time, however, she had not been so exigent. It happened to suit

some other arrangements of hers to spend Whitsuntide at Beechleigh, so

she consented to chaperon Morella Winmarleigh without asking for a list

of the guests.

Hector had never conformed to any special set; he went here, there, and

everywhere, and was welcomed by all. But somehow, until this occasion,

Beechleigh had never seen him within its gates, although Lady

Harrowfield had praised him, and Mildred had sighed for him in vain.

He saw the situation at a glance when he came into the saloon: Josiah

and Theodora sitting together, neglected by every one but Barbara. They

could not have been more than half an hour in the house, he knew, for he

had found out when the trains got in.