ting vision nevertheless seemed miraculously to have
penetrated the dense green wall, to the obvious enlivenment of the
company.

'It's rather exciting seeing him at close quarters,' Hermione said to
Filey.

'Yes! He's the only politician I can get up any real enthusiasm for.
He's so many-sided. I saw him yesterday at a Bond Street show looking at
caricatures of himself and all his dearest friends.'

'Really. How did he take the sacrilege?'

'Oh, he was immensely amused at the fellow's impudence. You see, Stonor
could understand the art of the thing as well as the fun--the fierce
economy of line----'

Nobody listened. There were other attempts at conversation, mere decent
pretence at not being absorbed in watching for the appearance of
Geoffrey Stonor.

CHAPTER VI

There was the faint sound of a distant door's opening, and there was a
glimpse of the old butler. But before he could reach the French window
with his announcement, his own colourless presence was masked, wiped
out--not as the company had expected by the apparition of a man, but by
a tall, lightly-moving young woman with golden-brown eyes, and wearing a
golden-brown gown that had touches of wallflower red and gold on the
short jacket. There were only wallflowers in the small leaf-green toque,
and except for the sable boa in her hand (which so suddenly it was too
warm to wear) no single thing about her could at all adequately account
for the air of what, for lack of a better term, may be called accessory
elegance that pervaded the golden-brown vision, taking the low sunlight
on her face and smiling as she stepped through the window.

It was no small tribute to the lady had she but known it, that her
coming was not received nor even felt as an anti-climax.

As she came forward, all about her rose a significant Babel: 'Here's
Miss Levering!' 'It's Vida!' 'Oh, how do you _do_!'--the frou-frou of
swishing skirts, the scrape of chairs pushed back over stone flags, and
the greeting of the host and hostess, cordial to the point of
affection--the various handshakings, the discreet winding through the
groups of a footman with a fresh teapot, the Bedlington's first attack
of barking merged in tail-wagging upon pleased recognition of a friend;
and a final settling down again about the tea-table with the air full of
scraps of talk and unfinished questions.

'You didn't see anything of my brother and his wife?' asked Lord
Borrodaile.

'Oh, yes,' his