On a certain night early in December, Elizabeth had been dining at one of the great houses of London.  Anderson too had been there.  The dinner party, held in a famous room panelled with full-length Vandycks, had been of the kind that only London can show; since only in England is society at once homogeneous enough and open enough to provide it.  In this house, also, the best traditions of an older regime still prevailed, and its gatherings recalled—­not without some conscious effort on the part of the hostess—­the days of Holland House, and Lady Palmerston.  To its smaller dinner parties, which were the object of so many social ambitions, nobody was admitted who could not bring a personal contribution.  Dukes had no more claim than other people, but as most of the twenty-eight were blood-relations of the house, and some Dukes are agreeable, they took their turn.  Cabinet Ministers, Viceroys, Ambassadors, mingled with the men of letters and affairs.  There was indeed a certain old-fashioned measure in it all.  To be merely notorious—­even though you were amusing—­was not passport enough.  The hostess—­a beautiful tall woman, with the brow of a child, a quick intellect, and an amazing experience of life—­created round her an atmosphere that was really the expression of her own personality; fastidious, and yet eager; cold, and yet steeped in intellectual curiosities and passions.  Under the mingled stimulus and restraint of it, men and women brought out the best that was in them.  The talk was good, and nothing—­neither the last violinist, nor the latest danseuse—­was allowed to interfere with it.  And while the dress and jewels of the women were generally what a luxurious capital expects and provides, you might often find some little girl in a dyed frock—­with courage, charm and breeding—­the centre of the scene.

Elizabeth in white, and wearing some fine jewels which had been her mother’s, had found herself placed on the left of her host, with an ex-Viceroy of India on her other hand.  Anderson, who was on the opposite side of the table, watched her animation, and the homage that was eagerly paid her by the men around her.  Those indeed who had known her of old were of opinion that whereas she had always been an agreeable companion, Lady Merton had now for some mysterious reason blossomed into a beauty.  Some kindling change had passed over the small features.  Delicacy and reserve were still there, but interfused now with a shimmering and transforming brightness, as though some flame within leapt intermittently to sight.

Elizabeth more than held her own with the ex-Viceroy, who was a person of brilliant parts, accustomed to be flattered by women.  She did not flatter him, and he was reduced in the end to making those efforts for himself, which he generally expected other people to make for him.  Elizabeth’s success with him drew the attention of several other persons at the table besides Anderson.  The ex-Viceroy was a bachelor, and one of the great partis of the day.  What could be more fitting than that Elizabeth Merton should carry him off, to the discomfiture of innumerable intriguers?