She was even
more exquisitely dressed than usual; and Stafford heard some of the
women and men murmur admiringly and enviously as she swept across the
hall in her magnificent ball-dress; her diamonds, for which she was
famous, glittering in her hair, on her white throat, and on her slender
wrists. The dress was a mixture of grey and black, which would have
looked _bizarre_ on anyone else less beautiful; but its strange tints
harmonised with her superb and classic class of beauty, and she looked
like a vision of loveliness which might well dazzle the eyes of the
beholders.
She paused in her progress--it might almost be called a triumphant one,
for the other women's looks were eloquent of dismay--and looked at
Stafford with the slow, half-dreamy smile which had come into her face
of late when she spoke to him.
"Have you seen my father? Has he come down, Mr. Orme?" she asked.
"No," said Stafford. He looked at her, as a man does when he admires a
woman's dress, and forgetting Howard's words of warning, said: "What a
splendacious frock, Miss Falconer!"
"Do you like it? I am glad," she said.
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