He was announced while they were talking of him, and he seemed surprised to come suddenly upon that slim unobtrusive figure almost hidden by Belinda’s flowing garment and fuller form. Belinda was decidedly handsome--handsomer than an heiress need be; but she was also just a shade larger than an heiress need be at three and twenty. She was a Rubens’ beauty, expansive, florid, and fair, with reddish auburn hair piled on the top of her head. Sitting between this massive beauty and the still more massive chimney-piece, Mrs. Disney was completely hidden from the new arrival. He discovered her suddenly while he was shaking hands with Belinda, and his quick glance of pleased surprise did not escape that young lady’s steely blue eyes. Not a look or a breath ever does escape observation in a village drawing-room. Even the intellectual people, the people who devour all Mudie’s most solid books--travels, memoirs, metaphysics, agnostic novels--even these are as keenly interested in their neighbours’ thoughts and feelings as the unlettered rustic in the village street. Lostwithiel took the proffered cup of tea, and planted himself near Mrs. Disney, with his back against the marble caryatid which bore up one-half of the chimney-piece. Alicia began to talk to him about his yacht. How were the repairs going on? and so on, and so on, delighted to air her technical knowledge. He answered her somewhat languidly, as if the _Vendetta_ were not first in his thoughts at this particular moment. “What about this ball?” he asked presently. “You are all going to be there, of course?” “Do you mean the hunt ball at Lostwithiel?” “Of course! What other ball could I mean? It is the great festivity of these parts. The one tremendous event of the winter season. It was a grand idea of you new people to revive the old festivity, which had become a tradition. I wore my first dress coat at the Lostwithiel Hunt Ball nearly twenty years ago. I think it was there I first fell in love, with a young lady in pink tulle, who was miserable because she had been mistaken enough to wear pink at a hunt ball. I condoled with her, assured her that in my eyes she was lovely, although her gown clashed--that was her word, I remember--with the pink coats. My coat was not pink, and I believe she favoured me a little on that account. She gave me a good many waltzes in the course of the evening, and I can answer for her never wearing that pink frock again, for I trampled it to shreds. There were traces of her to be found all over the rooms, as if I had been Greenacre and she my victim’s body.” “It will be rather a humdrum ball, I’m afraid,” said Belinda. “All the best people seem to be away.” “Never mind that if the worst people can dance. I am on the committee, so I will answer for the supper and the champagne. You like a dry brand, of course, Miss Crowther?” “I never touch wine of any kind.”