It was hot at Woodgreen; but it was hotter still in Mayfair, where the
season was drawing to a close with all the signs of a long-spun-out and
exhausting dissolution. Women were waxing pale under the prolonged
strain of entertainments which for the last week or two had been
matters of duty rather than pleasure, and many a girl who had entered
the lists of society a blushing and hopeful _débutante_ with perhaps a
ducal coronet in her mind's eye, was beginning to think that she would
have to be content with, say, the simpler one of a viscountess; or even
to wed with no coronet at all. Many of the men were down at Cowes or
golfing at St. Andrews; and those unfortunates who were detained in
attendance at the house which continued to sit, like a "broody hen," as
Howard said, longed and sighed for the coming of the magic 12th of
August, before which date they assured themselves the House _must_ rise
and so bring about their long-delayed holiday.
But one man showed no sign of weariness or a desire for rest; Sir
Stephen's step was light and buoyant as ever on the hot pavement of
Pall Mall, and on the still hotter one of the city; his face was as
cheery, his manner as gay, and his voice as bright and free from care
as those of a young man.
There is no elixir like success; and Sir Stephen was drinking deeply of
the delicious draught. He had been well known for years: he was famous
now. You could not open a newspaper without coming upon his name in the
city article, and in the fashionable intelligence. Now it was a report
of the meeting of some great company, at which Sir Stephen had
presided, at another time it occurred in a graphic account of a big
party at the house he had rented at Grosvenor Square. It was a huge
mansion, and the rent ran into many figures; but, as Howard remarked,
it did not matter; Sir Stephen was rich enough to rent every house in
the square. Sir Stephen had taken over the army of servants and lived
in a state which was little short of princely: and lived alone; for
Stafford, who was not fond of a big house and still less fond of a
large retinue, begged permission to remain at his own by no means
over-luxurious but rather modest rooms.
It is not improbable that he would have liked to have absented himself
from the grand and lavish entertainments with which his father
celebrated the success of his latest enterprise; but it was not
possible, and Stafford was present at the dinners and luncheons,
receptions and concerts which went on, apparently without a break, at
Clarendon House.