Always ill at ease in a woman's presence, a
woman's tears reduced him to despair. He stroked her hair gently as he
would have quieted a favourite horse.
"I am so sorry that these brutes have frightened you. But here we are
at Glenavelin gates."
And all the while his heart was crying out to him to clasp her in his
arms, and the words which trembled on his tongue were the passionate
consolations of a lover.
CHAPTER XVI
A MOVEMENT OP THE POWERS
At Mrs. Montrayner's dinner parties a world of silent men is sandwiched
between a _monde_ of chattering women. The hostess has a taste for busy
celebrities who eat their dinner without thought of the cookery, and
regard their fair neighbours much as the diners think of the band in a
restaurant. She chose her company with care, and if at her table there
was not the busy clack of a fluent conversation, there was always the
possibility of _bons mots_ and the off-chance of a State secret. So to
have dined with the Montrayners became a boast in a small social set,
and to the unilluminate the Montrayner banquets seemed scarce less
momentous than Cabinet meetings.
Wratislaw found himself staring dully at a snowy bank of flowers and
looking listlessly at the faces beyond. He was extremely worried, and
his grey face and sunken eyes showed the labour he had been passing
through. The country was approaching the throes of a crisis, and as yet
the future was a blind alley to him.
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