When he stopped, he found himself standing next to Edwards, who gave him a cordial nod and a whispered: “Will speak to you presently.” The song was finished and his host turned to Lydon. “Very pleased to see you here. I little thought when we used to meet occasionally at the club that we should become so closely connected, as it were. Stormont has known Zillah from a child; he is a sort of adopted uncle. Delightful fellow, Stormont, so genial, so unaffected.” “Quite,” said Lydon, in a tone the reverse of enthusiastic. Not greatly relishing the prospect of a prolonged conversation with Edwards, he was about to move when his host stopped him. “Do you see that young man talking to my wife, over there by the door? You know who he is, don’t you?” Lydon looked in the direction indicated. Zillah Edwards was conversing with a handsome, elegant young fellow of about twenty-five. There was something distinguished and aristocratic about his appearance, and Leonard fancied that the face was familiar to him, but he could not recall where or under what circumstances he had seen it. “That is Lord Wraysbury, the eldest son of the Earl of Feltham, one of the oldest families in England,” whispered Edwards in an impressive voice; and guided by this information, the young man knew why the face was familiar to him. He had seen the portrait of the young fellow in some of the society papers. “He often comes here,” went on the host. “You know all about his history, I suppose?” “Very little,” was the cold answer. “My acquaintance with the great world is negligible, I am sorry to say.” “It is quite a romance,” continued the other, who did not seem to have noticed the coldness of his companion’s manner. “His father, as I said, can boast of representing one of the oldest families in England, but he is not rich. The estates are in Suffolk, and I am told don’t produce much more than twenty thousand a year; that is not much for a nobleman in his position, you know, and he has a large family.” “I suppose not,” assented Lydon, who was not particularly interested in this good-looking young aristocrat. “Well, thanks to an extraordinary bit of luck, Wraysbury is very rich, one of the richest young men in London. He owes it to his aunt, a very beautiful woman. She married twice. The first match was a fairly good one, but nothing out of the common. She was left a widow when she was just nearing thirty. Her second husband was an enormously rich American who had settled in England, a multi-millionaire. He died soon too, five years after their marriage. The bulk of his fortune was left to his children by a first wife; but his widow, Wraysbury’s aunt, got a comfortable two million left to her to dispose of as she liked. “She was devoted to Wraysbury. Never having had a child by either of her husbands, she looked upon him as a son. She died two years ago and left him every penny, with the exception of a few insignificant legacies.”