"I am a fool!" she muttered. "It can't be true. So soon! So suddenly!
Oh, I can't be such a fool!"
CHAPTER XVII.
If everybody was not enjoying himself at the Villa it certainly was not
the fault of the host, Sir Stephen Orme. Howard, as he drew his chair
up beside Stafford, when the ladies had left the room after dinner, and
the gentlemen had begun to glance longingly at the rare Chateau claret
and the Windermere port, made a remark to this effect:
"Upon my word, Staff, it is the most brilliant house-party which I have
ever joined; and as to your father in his character of host--Well,
words fail to express my admiration."
Stafford glanced at his father at the head of the table and nodded. Sir
Stephen had been the life and soul and spring of the dinner; talking
fashionable gossip to Lady Fitzharford on one side of him, and a "giddy
girl of twenty" on the other; exchanging badinage with "Bertie," and
telling deeply interesting stories to the men; and he was now dragging
reluctant laughter from the grim Baron Wirsch and the almost grimmer
Griffenberg, as he saw with one eye that the wine was circulating, and
with the other that no one was being overlooked or allowed to drop into
dullness.
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