Rathbone put the subject from his mind and carried out his original intention of leaving his chambers in Vere Street early. It was still a lovely afternoon and he stopped the hansom cab and walked the last half mile with pleasure. He passed a couple of fashionable ladies of his acquaintance out taking the air, their crinolined skirts obliging him to step almost to the curb in order not to be in their way. He bowed to them, raising his hat, and they smiled charmingly and continued their excited conversation.

The slight breeze carried the sound of an organ grinder, and children shouting to one another, and the rapid clip of a horse's hooves as it pulled a light carriage or gig.

He reached his home in plenty of time to eat supper, then sat and read the day's newspapers before changing into his evening clothes and leaving for Lady Hardesty's ball.

He arrived amid a crowd of other carriages and alighted, paid his driver, and went up the steps and into the blaze of lights and the swirl and glitter of enormous skirts, white shoulders, jewels of every sort, the sound of music and laughter and endless talk. Footmen moved about with trays of champagne, or lemonade for the more abstemious and the young ladies who should not overindulge, and perhaps behave in a less than seemly manner, or forget for an instant why they were there. A girl who did not make a fortunate impression in her first season was in perilous shape, and if she had not found a husband by her second, could be written off as a disaster.

Rathbone had been told these facts of life often enough, but he took them with a smile. It was an intellectual rather than emotional knowledge. Whether a man married or not was immaterial, except to himself. Society thought neither more nor less of him. All around him he heard snatches of conversation.

"What happened to Louisa?" an elderly lady in burgundy silk asked rhetorically, her eyebrows raised. "Why, my dear, she left the country. Went to live in Italy, I think. What else could she do?"