at's no good. Dine with me to-morrow night?--if you are free?
Excellent!--that's arranged. Meanwhile--send him in, mademoiselle--send
him in! He's fresh--let him take his turn." And the Minister, grinning,
pointed backward over his shoulder towards an inner drawing-room, where
the form of an old lady, seated in a wheeled invalid-chair between two
other persons, could be just dimly seen.

"When the Bishop goes," said Mademoiselle Le Breton, with a laughing
shake of the head. "But I told him not to stay long."

"He won't want to. Lady Henry pays no more attention to his cloth than
to my gray hairs. The rating she has just given me for my speech of last
night! Well, good-night, dear lady--good-night. You _are_ better,
I think?"

Mr. Montresor threw a look of scrutiny no less friendly than earnest at
the lady to whom he was speaking; and immediately afterwards Sir
Wilfrid, who was wedged in by an entering group of people, caught the
murmured words:

"Consult me when you want me--at any time."

Mademoiselle Le Breton raised her beautiful eyes to the speaker in a
mute gratitude.

"And five minutes ago I thought her plain!" said Sir Wilfrid to himself
as he moved away. "Upon my word, for a _dame de compagnie_ that young
woman is at her ease! But where the deuce have I seen her, or her
double, before?"

He paused to look round the room a moment, before yielding himself to
one of the many possible conversations which, as he saw, it contained
for him. It was a stately panelled room of the last century, furnished
with that sure instinct both for comfort and beauty which a small
minority of English rich people have always possessed. Two glorious
Gainsboroughs, clad in the subtlest brilliance of pearly white and
shimmering blue, hung on either side of the square opening leading to
the inner room. The fair, clouded head of a girl, by Romney, looked down
from the panelling above the hearth. A gowned abbe, by Vandyck, made the
centre of another wall, facing the Gainsboroughs. The pictures were all
famous, and had been associated for generations with the Delafield name.
Beneath them the carpets were covered by fine eighteenth-century
furniture, much of it of a florid Italian type subdued to a delicate and
faded beauty by time and use. The room was cleverly broken into various
circles and centres for conversation; the chairs were many and
comfortable; flowers sheltered tete-a-tetes or made a setting for
beautiful faces; the lamp