Belden locked the case and put it away. The full luxurious sound of music from the hall swelled up again after a pause and filled the room. Some men are purified from baser wishes by the delicate sensualities of passionate music; but not such men as Belden. “Ah, a galop!” he thought. “I must go down and have a stampede and hug with Mrs. Bud. Dear Betty Bud! I think I get on rather faster with her than with Miss Diana.” He went to the glass to arrange his toilet for the deranging struggles of the hop. He did not perceive that the look of his three villainies of the evening was stamped upon his face--three, one remembered, two meditated. He thought it was the effect of age, the change he began to be conscious of in his appearance. But age, of those whose lives are worthy to endure, softens and tranquillises expression and harmonises colouring; it does not darken the shadows where they had grown dark on his face, nor give the unpeaceful and uneasy look he had. “I must hold up for a while,” he thought. “I wish I could keep away from that damned faro place. My luck is dished lately. However, I’ll make that race square the accounts. If it don’t, I’m up a tree.” He went down Jacob’s Ladder. Millard’s parlour was nearly as deserted as its namesake of political supporters. All the Millarders and the Nilvederes, with a decimation of outsiders and farthermores, were taking their constitutional perspiration bath in the dining rooms--tables having been turned out for the occasion. Trotting polkas, racking redowas, cantering waltzes, galloping galops--bipeds were being put through all their paces. The old flirtations were going on swimmingly in the damp intervals of dance; and lo! a new one. Bob O’Link was for the first time devoted to Miss Anthrope. That strong-minded young person had, in the most feeble-minded manner, succumbed at once when Bob O’ suddenly and newly appeared in the ballroom and unanimously singled her out for a permanent partner. “Miss Anthrope has decided to take a false position,” said Peter Skerrett to Gyas and Cloanthus, who were swabbing and drying off at the door. “No! Has she, though!” said Gyas. “What is it? She looks to me as well on her pins as usual.” “She is going to marry for money--that is the false position, a pillory that neither man nor woman ever escaped from. Well, Bob O’ will stand by her better than most fellows. Look at the chap. He is as sure to win in love, particularly the bought variety, as at billiards.” “Stand by, Peter,” said Gyas; “I’m going to say a good thing. Miss Anthrope will be linked to Link, in the links of high man’s chain. Capital, isn’t it? Now, Clo, don’t you get ahead of me and say that to Julia.” “Honour among friends,” returned Cloanthus. “I’ll take you odds, Guy, on Bob O’Link. Ten to one he gets her in ten days; five to one in five days; two to one on to-morrow--and even it’s done to-night.”