t, when the
rooms were almost full, but not yet crowded, and most of the more
important guests had already arrived. It was just after the first
greetings of people seeing each other for the first time were over, and
an event of some kind was wanted. At such a moment princes and
princesses are timed to arrive and bring the glory of the assembly to a
climax. Lucy had no princess to honour her. But when out of the crowd
round the doorway there were seen to emerge two beautiful and stately
women unknown, the sensation was almost as great. One of them, who had
the air of a Queen-Mother, was in dark dress studiously arranged to be a
little older, a little more massive and magnificent than a woman of the
Contessa's age required to wear (and which, accordingly, threw up all
the more, though this, to do her justice, was a coquetry more or less
unintentional, her unfaded beauty); and the other, an impersonation of
youth, contemplated the world by her side with that open-eyed and
sovereign gaze, proud and modest, but without any of the shyness or
timidity of a _debutante_ which becomes a young princess in her own
right. There was a general thrill of wonder and admiration wherever they
were seen. Who were they, everybody asked? Though the name of the
Forno-Populo was too familiarly known to a section of society, that is
not to say that the ladies of Lucy's party, or even all the men had
heard it bandied from mouth to mouth, or were aware that it had ever
been received with less than respect: and the universal interest was
spoiled only here and there in a corner by the laugh of the male
gossips, who made little signs to each other, in token of knowing more
than their neighbours. It was said among the more innocent that this was
an Italian lady of distinction with her daughter or niece, and her
appearance, if a little more marked and effective than an English lady's
might have been, was thus fully explained and accounted for by the
difference in manners and that inalienable dramatic gift, which it is
common to believe in England, foreigners possess. No doubt their
entrance was very dramatic. The way in which they contrasted and
harmonised with each other was too studied for English traditions,
which, in all circumstances, cling to something of the impromptu, an air
of accidentalism. They were a spectacle in themselves as they advanced
through the open central space, from which the ordinary guests
instinctively withdrew to leave room f