He had not seen her for fifteen years, and he started quickly as if from an unsuspected shock.  She was talking rapidly in her fervent voice, the old illumination in her look.  Her noble figure, in a straight flaxen gown, was drawn against a background of green, her head was bent forward on her long white neck, her kindly hands were outstretched.  She had developed from a girl into a woman, but to him she was unchanged.  Her face was, perhaps, older, her bosom fuller, but he did not see it—­to him she appeared as the resurrected spirit of his youth.  Miss Carr was speaking and he made some brief rejoinder.  Eugenia had turned and was looking at him; in a moment he heard her voice.

“Are old friends too far beneath the eyes of your excellency?” she asked, and he heard the soft laugh pulse in her throat.

Her hand was outstretched, and he took it for an instant in his own.

“I am very glad to see you,” he remarked lamely as he let it fall—­so lamely that he bit his lip at the remembrance.  “You are looking well,” he added.

“Of course—­a woman always looks well at night,” she answered lightly.  “And you,” she laughed again, her kindly, unconscious laugh; “you are looking—­large.”

He did not smile.  “I have no doubt of it,” he responded, and was silent.

Juliet Galt broke in with an affectionate protest.  “Eugie is as great a tease as ever,” she said.  “She will be the death of my baby yet.  I tell her to choose one of her own size, but she never does.  She always plagues those smaller than herself—­or larger.”

But Eugenia had turned away to greet a stranger, and in a moment Nicholas drew back into a windowed embrasure where the lights were dim.

Suddenly a voice broke upon his ear addressing Juliet Galt—­the vibrant tones of Dudley Webb.  He had come in late and was standing in mock helplessness before Juliet and Carrie, his plump white hand vacillating between the two.

“I am at a loss!” he exclaimed with an appealing shrug of his shoulders.  “Which is the debutante?”

Juliet laughed, her cheeks mantling with a pleased blush.

“You’re a sad flatterer, Dudley!  Isn’t he, Eugie?”

Eugenia turned with a questioning glance.

“Oh, it’s just his way,” she returned good-humouredly.  “A kindly Providence has decreed that he should cover over my deficiencies.”

Dudley protested affably, and ended by giving a hand to each.  In the crowded rooms he had become at once the picturesque and popular figure.  His magnetism was immediately felt, and men and women surrounded him in small circles, while his pleasant words ran on smoothly, accompanied by the ring of his infectious laugh.  The luminous pallor of his clear-cut, yet fleshy face, was accentuated by the sweep of his dark hair that clung closely to his forehead.  He seemed to have brought with him into the heated rooms the spirit of humour and the zest of life.