_ or to the
assembled company, to perfection, so cunningly was it all devised.

When the Elsmeres entered, there were about a dozen people present--ten
gentleman and two ladies. One of the ladies, Madame de Netteville, was
lying back in the corner of a velvet divan placed against the wall, a
screen between her and a splendid fire that threw its blaze out into the
room. The other, a slim woman with closely curled fair hair, and a neck
abnormally long and white, sat near her, and the circle of men were
talking indiscriminately to both.

As the footman announced Mr. and Mrs. Elsmere, there was a general stir
of surprise. The men looked round; Madame de Netteville half rose with
a puzzled look. It was more than a month since she had dropped her
invitation. Then a flash, not altogether of pleasure, passed over her
face, and she said a few hasty words to the woman near her, advancing
the moment afterward to give her hand to Catherine.

'This is very kind of you, Mrs. Elsmere, to remember me so soon. I had
imagined you were hardly settled enough yet to give me the pleasure of
seeing you.'

But the eyes fixed on Catherine, eyes which took in everything, were not
cordial for all their smile.

Catherine, looking up at her, was overpowered by her excessive manner,
and by the woman's look of conscious sarcastic strength, struggling
through all the outer softness of beauty and exquisite dress.

'Mr. Elsmere, you will find this room almost as hot, I am afraid, as
that afternoon on which we met last. Let me introduce you to Count
Wielandt--Mr. Elsmere. Mrs. Elsmere, will you come over here, beside
Lady Aubrey Willert?'

Robert found himself bowing to a young diplomatist, who seemed to him to
look at him very much as he himself might have scrutinized an inhabitant
of New Guinea. Lady Aubrey made an imperceptible movement of the head
as Catherine was presented to her, and Madame de Netteville, smiling and
biting her lip a little, fell back into her seat.

There was a faint odor of smoke in the room. As Catherine sat down, a
young exquisite a few yards from her threw the end of a cigarette into
the fire with a little sharp decided gesture. Lady Aubrey also pushed
away a cigarette case which lay beside her hand.

Everybody there had the air more or less of an _habitue_ of the house;
and when the conversation began again, the Elsmeres found it very
hard, in spite of certain perfunctory efforts on the part of Madame de
Netteville