r--and--you'll excuse my mentioning it, but a
quiet blouse and a little chiffon, you know, will be quite sufficient.
It's your first evening, and early impressions do count for so much.
You understand me, I'm sure."

Anna was a little puzzled, but she only laughed.

"Perhaps, as I've only just arrived," she remarked, "I might be
forgiven if I do not change my skirt. I packed so hurriedly that it
will take me a long time to find my things."

"Certainly," Mrs. White assured her. "Certainly. I'll mention it.
You're tired, of course. This is your room. The gong will go at
seven-thirty. Don't be late if you can help it."

* * * * *

Anna was not late, but her heart sank within her when she entered the
drawing-room. It was not a hopeful looking group. Two or three
podgy-looking old men with wives to match, half-a-dozen overdressed
girls, and a couple of underdressed American ones, who still wore the
clothes in which they had been tramping half over London since
breakfast time. A sprinkling of callow youths, and a couple of
pronounced young Jews, who were talking loudly together in some
unintelligible jargon of the City. What had she to do with such as
these? She had hard work to keep a smiling face, as Mrs. White, who
had risen to greet her, proceeded with a formal, and from Anna's point
of view, a wholly unnecessary round of introductions. And then
suddenly--a relief. A young man--almost a boy, slight, dark, and with
his brother's deep grey eyes--came across the room to her.

"You must be the Miss Pellissier of whom David has told me so much,"
he said, shyly. "I am very glad that you have come here. I heard from
David about you only this morning."

"You are marvellously like your brother," Anna said, beaming upon him.
"I have a letter for you, and no end of messages. Where can we sit
down and talk?"

He led her across the room towards a window recess, in which a tall,
fair young man was seated with an evening paper in his hand.

"Let me introduce my friend to you," Courtlaw said. "Arthur, this is
Miss Pellissier--Mr. Brendon. Brendon and I are great chums," he went
on nervously. "We are clerks in the same bank. I don't think that the
rest of the people here like us very well, do they, Arthur, so we're
obliged to be friends."

Anna shook hands with Brendon--a young man also, but older and more
self-possessed than Sydney Courtlaw.

"Sydney is quite right, Miss Pellissier," he said.