He paused to look round the room a moment, before yielding himself to one of the many possible conversations which, as he saw, it contained for him.  It was a stately panelled room of the last century, furnished with that sure instinct both for comfort and beauty which a small minority of English rich people have always possessed.  Two glorious Gainsboroughs, clad in the subtlest brilliance of pearly white and shimmering blue, hung on either side of the square opening leading to the inner room.  The fair, clouded head of a girl, by Romney, looked down from the panelling above the hearth.  A gowned abbe, by Vandyck, made the centre of another wall, facing the Gainsboroughs.  The pictures were all famous, and had been associated for generations with the Delafield name.  Beneath them the carpets were covered by fine eighteenth-century furniture, much of it of a florid Italian type subdued to a delicate and faded beauty by time and use.  The room was cleverly broken into various circles and centres for conversation; the chairs were many and comfortable; flowers sheltered tete-a-tetes or made a setting for beautiful faces; the lamps were soft, the air warm and light.  A cheerful hum of voices rose, as of talk enjoyed for talking’s sake; and a general effect of intimacy, or gayety, of an unfeigned social pleasure, seemed to issue from the charming scene and communicate itself to the onlooker.

And for a few moments, before he was discovered and tumultuously annexed by a neighboring group, Sir Wilfrid watched the progress of Mademoiselle Le Breton through the room, with the young Duchess in her wake.  Wherever she moved she was met with smiles, deference, and eager attention.  Here and there she made an introduction, she redistributed a group, she moved a chair.  It was evident that her eye was everywhere, that she knew every one; her rule appeared to be at once absolute and welcome.  Presently, when she herself accepted a seat, she became, as Sir Wilfrid perceived in the intervals of his own conversation, the leader of the most animated circle in the room.  The Duchess, with one delicate arm stretched along the back of Mademoiselle Le Breton’s chair, laughed and chattered; two young girls in virginal white placed themselves on big gilt footstools at her feet; man after man joined the group that stood or sat around her; and in the centre of it, the brilliance of her black head, sharply seen against a background of rose brocade, the grace of her tall form, which was thin almost to emaciation, the expressiveness of her strange features, the animation of her gestures, the sweetness of her voice, drew the eyes and ears of half the room to Lady Henry’s “companion.”

Presently there was a movement in the distance.  A man in knee-breeches and silver-buckled shoes emerged from the back drawing-room.  Mademoiselle Le Breton rose at once and went to meet him.

“The Bishop has had a long innings,” said an old general to Sir Wilfrid Bury.  “And here is Mademoiselle Julie coming for you.”