eepened to admiration by the time he had been half an
hour in the place. She stood near the entrance with her two elder
daughters, distributing the most familiar, most encouraging smiles,
together with hand-shakes which were in themselves a whole system of
hospitality. If her party was grand Cousin Maria was not; she indulged
in no assumption of stateliness and no attempt at graduated welcomes. It
seemed to Raymond that it was only because it would have taken too much
time that she didn't kiss every one. Effie looked lovely and just a
little frightened, which was exactly what she ought to have done; and he
noticed that among the arriving guests those who were not intimate
(which he could not tell from Mrs. Temperly's manner, but could from
their own) recognised her as a daughter much more quickly than they
recognised Dora, who hung back disinterestedly, as if not to challenge
their discernment, while the current passed her, keeping her little
sister in position on its brink meanwhile by the tenderest small
gesture.

'May I talk with you a little, later?' he asked of Dora, with only a
few seconds for the question, as people were pressing behind him. She
answered evasively that there would be very little talk--they would all
have to listen--it was very serious; and the next moment he had received
a programme from the hand of a monumental yet gracious personage who
stood beyond and who had a silver chain round his neck.

The place was arranged for music, and how well arranged he saw later,
when every one was seated, spaciously, luxuriously, without pushing or
over-peeping, and the finest talents in Paris performed selections at
which the best taste had presided. The singers and players were all
stars of the first magnitude. Raymond was fond of music and he wondered
whose taste it had been. He made up his mind it was Dora's--it was only
she who could have conceived a combination so exquisite; and he said to
himself: 'How they all pull together! She is not in it, she is not of
it, and yet she too works for the common end.' And by 'all' he meant
also Mademoiselle Bourde and the Marquise. This impression made him feel
rather hopeless, as if, _en fin de compte_, Cousin Maria were too large
an adversary. Great as was the pleasure of being present on an occasion
so admirably organised, of sitting there in a beautiful room, in a
still, attentive, brilliant company, with all the questions of
temperature, space, light and decoratio