“I am so fortunate to find you at home, Mrs. Brown,” she said.  “My brother has told me so much about you, and I was longing to meet you.  May we sit down on this sofa and talk a little, or were you just starting for your drive?”

“Of course we may sit down,” said Theodora.  “My drive does not matter in the least.  It was so good of you to come.”

And her inward thought was that she would like Hector’s sister.  Anne’s frankness and sans gene were so pleasing.

They exchanged a few agreeable sentences while each measured the other, and then Lady Anningford said: 

“You come from Australia, don’t you?”

“Australia!” smiled Theodora, while her eyes opened wide.  “Oh no!  I have never been out of France and Belgium and places like that.  My husband lived in Melbourne for some years, though.”

“I thought it could not be possible,” quoth Anne to herself.

“Then you don’t know much of England yet?” she said, aloud.

“It is my first visit; and it seems very dull and rainy.  This is the only really fine day we have had since we arrived.”

Anne soon dexterously elicited an outline of Theodora’s plans and what she was doing.  They would only remain in town until Whitsuntide, perhaps returning later for a week or two; and Mrs. Devlyn, to whom her father had sent her an introduction, had been kind enough to tell them what to do and how to see a little of London.  She was going to a ball to-night.  The first real ball she had ever been to in her life, she said, ingenuously.

And Lady Anningford looked at her and each moment fell more under her charm.

“The ball at Harrowfield House, I expect, to meet the King of Guatemala,” she said, knowing Lady Harrowfield was Florence Devlyn’s cousin.

“That is it,” said Theodora.

“Then you must dance with Hector—­my brother,” she said.

She launched his name suddenly; she wanted to see what effect it would have on Theodora.  “He is sure to be there, and he dances divinely.”

She was rewarded for her thrust:  just the faintest pink came into the white velvet cheeks, and the blue eyes melted softly.  To dance with Hector!  Ah!  Then the radiance was replaced by a look of sadness, and she said, quietly: 

“Oh, I do not think I shall dance at all.  My husband is rather an invalid, and we shall only go in for a little while.”

No, she must not dance with Hector.  Those joys were not for her—­she must not even think of it.

“How extraordinarily beautiful she is!” Anne thought, when presently, the visit ended, she found herself rolling along in her electric brougham towards the park.  “And I feel I shall love her.  I wonder what her Christian name is?”

Theodora had promised they would lunch in Charles Street with her the next day if her husband should be well enough after the ball.  And Anne decided to collect as many nice people to meet them as she could in the time.