At Love's Cost by Charles Garvice — Read

The ball which Lady Clansford always gave about the middle of the season is generally a very brilliant affair; but this year it was more brilliant and, alas! more crowded than usual; for Lord Clansford was connected, as everybody knows, with the great Trans-African Company, and, as also everybody knows, that company had recovered from the blow dealt it by the rising of the natives, and was now flourishing beyond the most sanguine expectations of its owners; the Clansford coffers, not to mention those of many other persons, were overflowing, and Lord Clansford could afford a somewhat magnificent hospitality.

Howard, as he made his way up the crowded stairs, smiled cynically to himself as he caught sight of a little knot of financiers who stood just outside the great doors of the _salon_. They were all there--Griffenberg, Wirsch, the Beltons, Efford, and Fitzharford; and they were all smiling and in the best of humours, presenting by their appearance a striking contrast to that which they had worn when he had seen them on the night when the ruin of the company had been conveyed in that fatal cablegram. Having succeeded at last in forcing an entrance, and bowing over the hand of his noble hostess, which must have sadly ached, and returned her mechanical words of welcome with a smile as galvanic as her own, Howard sidled his way along the wall--a waltz was in progress--and collided against the "beautiful and bounteous" Bertie, who was mopping his brow and looking round despairingly for his partner.