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.

Indeed, it was necessary that he should be present and in attendance on
his _fiancêe_ who appeared at every function. Maude was now almost as
celebrated as Sir Stephen; for her beauty, her reputed wealth, and the
fact that she was engaged to the son of Sir Stephen, had raised her to
an exalted position in the fashionable world; and her name figured in
the newspapers very nearly as often as that of the great financier.

She had stepped from obscurity into that notoriety, for which we all of
us have such a morbid craving, almost in a single day; and she queened
it with a languid grace and self-possession which established her
position on a firm basis. Wherever she went she was the centre and
object of a small crowd of courtiers; the men admired her, and the
women envied her; for nowadays most women would rather marry wealth
than rank, unless the latter were accompanied by a long rent roll--and
in these hard times for landlords, too many English noblemen, have no
rent roll at all, short or long.