Darrell merely raised his eyebrows, without replying.  “What, not a match for one Lady Parham?” said Cliffe, with a laugh.  “I should have thought—­from my old recollections of her—­she would have been a match for twenty?”

“Oh, if she cared to try.”

“She is not ambitious?”

“Certainly; but not always for the same thing.”

“She is trying to run too many horses abreast?”

“Oh, I am not a great friend,” said Darrell, smiling.  “I should never dream of analyzing Lady Kitty.  Ah!”—­he turned his head—­“are we not forgotten, or just remembered—­which?”

For a rapid step approached, the door opened, and a lady appeared on the threshold.  It was not Kitty, however.  The new-comer advanced, putting up a pair of fashionable eye-glasses, and looking at the two men in a kind of languid perplexity, intended, as Darrell immediately said to himself, merely to prolong the moment and the effect of her entry.  Mrs. Alcot was very tall, and inordinately thin.  Her dark head on its slim throat, the poetic lines of the brow, her half-shut eyes, the gleam of her white teeth, and all the delicate detail of her dress, and, one might even say, of her manner, gave an impression of beauty, though she was not, in truth, beautiful.  But she had grace and she had daring—­the two essential qualities of an Archangel; she was also a remarkable artist, and no small critic.

“Mr. Cliffe,” she said, with a start of what was evidently agreeable surprise, “Kitty never told me.  When did you come?”

“I arrived a few days ago.  Why weren’t you at the embassy last night?”

“Because I was much better employed.  I have given up crushes.  But I would have come—­to meet you.  Ah, Mr. Darrell!” she added, in another tone, holding out an indifferent hand.  “Where is Kitty?” She looked round her.

“Shall we order lunch?” said Darrell, who had given her a greeting as careless as her own.

“Kitty is really too bad; she is never less than an hour late,” said Mrs. Alcot, seating herself.  “Last time she dined with us I asked her for seven-thirty.  She thought something very special must be happening, and arrived—­breathless—­at half-past eight.  Then she was furious with me because she was not the last.  But one can’t do it twice.  Well”—­addressing herself to Cliffe—­“are you come home to stay?”

“That depends,” said Cliffe, “on whether England makes itself agreeable to me.”

“What are your deserts?  Why should England be agreeable to you?” she replied, with a smiling sharpness.  “You do nothing but croak about England.”

Thus challenged, Cliffe sat down beside her and they fell into a bantering conversation.  Darrell, though inwardly wounded by the small trouble they took to include him, let nothing appear, put in a word now and then, or turned over the pages of the illustrated books.