hitherto invulnerable leader of _ton_ excited both joy and hope in
the breast of Lady Toppington and her little court. Now did Lady
Hunsdon sweep rivals aside with her flexible eyebrows, and on the
evening when she was able to announce her triumph, she was besieged
in her stately chair, not unlike a throne.

But she was deaf to hints and bolder hopes. She would not thrust a shy
young man, long a hermit, into a miscellaneous company when he had
come merely to drink tea with herself and son and a few intimate
friends. Later, of course, they should all meet him, but they must
possess their souls in patience. To this dictum they submitted as
gracefully as possible, but they were not so much in awe of Lady
Hunsdon as to forbear to peep from windows and sequestered nooks on
the following evening at nine o'clock, when Byam Warner emerged from
the palm avenue, ran hurriedly up the long flights of steps between
the terraces, and, escorted by Lord Hunsdon, who met him at the door,
up to the suite of his hostess.

Anne was standing in the deep embrasure of the window when he entered
the sitting-room, where she, in common with Lady Constance Mortlake,
Lady Mary Denbigh, Mrs. Nunn, and Miss Bargarny, who was a favourite
of Lady Hunsdon and would take no denial, had been bidden to do honour
to the poet. She heard Lady Hunsdon's dulcet icy tones greet him
and present him to her guests, the ceremonious responses of the
ladies--but not a syllable from Warner--before she steeled herself to
turn and walk forward. But the ordeal she had anticipated was still to
face. Warner did not raise his eyes as her name was pronounced. He
merely bowed mechanically and had the appearance of not having removed
his gaze from the floor since he entered the room. He was deathly
pale, and his lips were closely pressed as if to preserve their
firmness. Anne, emboldened by a shyness greater than her own, and
relieved of the immediate prospect of meeting his eyes, examined him
curiously after he had taken a chair and the others were amiably
covering his silence with their chatter. He had dressed himself in an
old but immaculate white linen suit with a high collar and small
necktie. It was evident that he had always been very thin, for his
clothes, unassisted by stays, fitted without a wrinkle, although his
shoulders were perhaps more bowed than when his tailor had measured
him. His hair was properly cut and parted, but although he was still
young, its black