It is, however, high time to explain the reason of our own presence—­of our own reception by France’s courteous representative.  We are here to meet Mrs. Sydney Bamborough, and, moreover, to confine our attention to the persons more or less implicated in the present history.

Mrs. Sydney Bamborough was undoubtedly the belle of the evening.  She had only to look in one of the many mirrors to make sure of that fact.  And if she wanted further assurance a hundred men in the room would have been ready to swear to it.  This lady had recently dawned on London society—­a young widow.  She rarely mentioned her husband; it was understood to be a painful subject.  He had been attached to several embassies, she said; he had a brilliant career before him, and suddenly he had died abroad.  And then she gave a little sigh and a bright smile, which, being interpreted, meant “Let us change the subject.”

There was never any doubt about Mrs. Sydney Bamborough.  She was aristocratic to the tips of her dainty white fingers—­composed, gentle, and quite sure of herself.  Quite the grand lady, as Lady Mealhead said.  But Mrs. Sydney Bamborough did not know Lady Mealhead, which may have accounted for the titled woman’s little sniff of interrogation.  As a matter of fact, Etta Sydney Bamborough came from excellent ancestry, and could claim an uncle here, a cousin there, and a number of distant relatives everywhere, should it be worth the while.

It was safe to presume that she was rich from the manner in which she dressed, the number of servants and horses she kept, the general air of wealth which pervaded her existence.  That she was beautiful any one could see for himself—­not in the shop-windows, among the presumably self-selected types of English beauty, but in the proper place—­namely, in her own and other aristocratic drawing-rooms.

She was talking to a tall, fair Frenchman—­in perfect French—­and was herself nearly as tall as he.  Bright brown hair waved prettily back from a white forehead, clever, dark gray eyes and a lovely complexion—­one of those complexions which, from a purity of conscience or a steadiness of nerve, never change.  Cheeks of a faint pink, an expressive, mobile mouth, a neck of dazzling white.  Such was Mrs. Sydney Bamborough, in the prime of her youth.

“And you maintain that it is five years since we met,” she was saying to the tall Frenchman.

“Have I not counted every day?” he replied.

“I do not know,” she answered, with a little laugh, that little laugh which tells wise men where flattery may be shot like so much conversational rubbish.  Some women are fathomless pits, the rubbish never seems to fill them.  “I do not know, but I should not think so.”

“Well, madam, it is so.  Witness these gray hairs.  Ah! those were happy days in St. Petersburg.”

Mrs. Sydney Bamborough smiled—­a pleasant society smile, not too pronounced and just sufficient to suggest pearly teeth.  At the mention of St. Petersburg she glanced round to see that they were not overheard.  She gave a little shiver.