Given in my honor, as this dinner was, I felt a most intense interest in its success. I was standing, as it were, on the threshold of life, and regarded the mode in which I should be received as an augury of good or evil. My father's supremacy at home, the despotism he wielded, and the respect and deference he exacted, led me to infer that he exercised the same influence on the world at large; and that, as I had often heard, the only complaint against him in society was his exclusiveness. I canvassed these thoughts with myself for hours, as I sat alone in my room waiting till it was time to dress. At last eight o'clock struck, and I went down into the drawing-room. Hotham was there, in a window recess, conversing in whispers with an Italian count,--one of our intimates, but of whom I knew nothing. They took no notice of me, so that I took up a paper and began to read. Cleremont came in soon after with a bundle of notes in his hand. “Has your father come down?” asked he, hastily; and then, without waiting for my reply, he turned and left the room. Madame next appeared. I have no words for my admiration of her, as, splendidly dressed and glittering with diamonds, she swept proudly in. That her beauty could have been so heightened by mere toilette seemed incredible, and as she read my wonderment in my face she smiled, and said:-- “Yes, Digby, I am looking my very best to _fête_ your birthday.” I would have liked to have told her how lovely she appeared to me, but I could only blush and gaze wonder-ingly on her. “Button this glove, dear,” said she, handing to me her wrist all weighted and jingling with costly bracelets; and while, with trembling fingers, I was trying to obey her, my father entered and came towards us. He made her a low but very distant bow, tapped me familiarly on the shoulder, and then moved across to an arm-chair and sat down. Cleremont now came in, and, drawing a chair beside my father's, leaned over and said something in a whisper. Not seeming to attend to what he was saying, my father snatched, rather than took, the bundle of letters he held in his hand, ran his eyes eagerly over some of them, and then, crushing the mass in his grasp, he threw it into the fire. “It is forty minutes past eight,” said he, calmly, but with a deadly pallor in his face. “Can any one tell me if that clock be right?” “It is eight or ten minutes slow,” said Hotham. “Whom do we wait for, Cleremont?” asked my father again. “Steinmetz was _de service_ with the King, but would come if he got free; and there's Rochegude, the French Secretary, was to replace his chief. I 'm not quite sure about the Walronds, but Craydon told me positively to expect _him_.” “Do me the favor to ring the bell and order dinner,” said my father; and he spoke with measured calm. “Won't you wait a few minutes?” whispered Cleremont. “The Duke de Frialmont, I'm sure, will be here.”