ene_ were so pleasing.

They exchanged a few agreeable sentences while each measured the other,
and then Lady Anningford said:

"You come from Australia, don't you?"

"Australia!" smiled Theodora, while her eyes opened wide. "Oh no! I have
never been out of France and Belgium and places like that. My husband
lived in Melbourne for some years, though."

"I thought it could not be possible," quoth Anne to herself.

"Then you don't know much of England yet?" she said, aloud.

"It is my first visit; and it seems very dull and rainy. This is the
only really fine day we have had since we arrived."

Anne soon dexterously elicited an outline of Theodora's plans and what
she was doing. They would only remain in town until Whitsuntide,
perhaps returning later for a week or two; and Mrs. Devlyn, to whom her
father had sent her an introduction, had been kind enough to tell them
what to do and how to see a little of London. She was going to a ball
to-night. The first real ball she had ever been to in her life, she
said, ingenuously.

And Lady Anningford looked at her and each moment fell more under her
charm.

"The ball at Harrowfield House, I expect, to meet the King of
Guatemala," she said, knowing Lady Harrowfield was Florence Devlyn's
cousin.

"That is it," said Theodora.

"Then you must dance with Hector--my brother," she said.

She launched his name suddenly; she wanted to see what effect it would
have on Theodora. "He is sure to be there, and he dances divinely."

She was rewarded for her thrust: just the faintest pink came into the
white velvet cheeks, and the blue eyes melted softly. To dance with
Hector! Ah! Then the radiance was replaced by a look of sadness, and she
said, quietly:

"Oh, I do not think I shall dance at all. My husband is rather an
invalid, and we shall only go in for a little while."

No, she must not dance with Hector. Those joys were not for her--she
must not even think of it.

"How extraordinarily beautiful she is!" Anne thought, when presently,
the visit ended, she found herself rolling along in her electric
brougham towards the park. "And I feel I shall love her. I wonder what
her Christian name is?"

Theodora had promised they would lunch in Charles Street with her the
next day if her husband should be well enough after the ball. And Anne
decided to collect as many nice people to meet them as she could in the
time.

At the corner of Grosvenor Square she met an old friend, one