t it. And before that, I remember his mother, the
old Duchess here, with her swarm of parsons. Upon my word, London tastes
good--after Teheran!"

And the speaker threw back his fair, grizzled head, regarding the
lights, the house, the guests, with the air of a sensitive dog on a
familiar scent.

"Ah, you're fresh home," said Delafield, laughing. "But let's just try
to keep you here--"

"My dear fellow, who is that at the top of the stairs?"

The old diplomat paused. In front of the pair some half a dozen guests
were ascending, and as many coming down. At the top stood a tall lady in
black, receiving and dismissing.

Delafield looked up.

"That is Mademoiselle Le Breton," he said, quietly.

"She receives?"

"She distributes the guests. Lady Henry generally establishes herself in
the back drawing-room. It doesn't do for her to see too many people at
once. Mademoiselle arranges it."

"Lady Henry must indeed be a good deal more helpless that I remember
her," murmured Sir Wilfrid, in some astonishment.

"She is, physically. Oh, no doubt of it! Otherwise you won't find much
change. Shall I introduce you?"

They were approaching a woman whose tall slenderness, combined with a
remarkable physiognomy, arrested the old man's attention. She was not
handsome--that, surely, was his first impression? The cheek-bones were
too evident, the chin and mouth too strong. And yet the fine pallor of
the skin, the subtle black-and-white, in which, so to speak, the head
and face were drawn, the life, the animation of the whole--were these
not beauty, or more than beauty? As for the eyes, the carriage of the
head, the rich magnificence of hair, arranged with an artful
eighteenth-century freedom, as Madame Vigee Le Brun might have worn
it--with the second glance the effect of them was such that Sir Wilfrid
could not cease from looking at the lady they adorned. It was an effect
as of something over-living, over-brilliant--an animation, an intensity,
so strong that, at first beholding, a by-stander could scarcely tell
whether it pleased him or no.

"Mademoiselle Le Breton--Sir Wilfrid Bury," said Jacob Delafield,
introducing them.

"_Is_ she French?" thought the old diplomat, puzzled. "And--have I ever
seen her before?"

"Lady Henry will be so glad!" said a low, agreeable voice. "You are one
of the old friends, aren't you? I have often heard her talk of you."

"You are very good. Certainly, I am an old friend--a connection also.