house in one of the most select of the discreet and uniform streets which adjoin Portman Square, he found the clatter of teacups for the most part over.  There were, in fact, only two persons in the long room, which, with its open Erard, and its innumerable bibelots, and its plenitude of quaint, impossible chairs, seemed quite cosily exiguous.  An old lady with a beautiful, refined face and a wealth of white hair, which was still charming to look at, sat in an attitude full of comfortable indolence, with a small pug in her lap, who bounced at Rainham with a bark of friendly recognition.  A young lady, at the other side of the room (she was at least young by courtesy), who was pouring out tea, stopped short in this operation to greet the new visitor with a little soft exclamation, in which pleasure and surprise mingled equally.  The old lady also looked up smiling.  She seemed both good-natured and distinguished, and she had the air—­a sort of tired complacency—­of a person who has been saying witty things for a whole afternoon, and is at last in the enjoyment of a well-deserved rest.  She extended both hands to Rainham, who held them for a minute in his own, silently smiling down at her, before he released them to greet her companion.

She was a tall, pale girl in a black dress, whom at first sight the impartial observer might easily declare to be neither pretty nor young.  As a matter of fact, she was younger than she seemed, for she was barely five-and-twenty, although her face and manner belonged to a type which, even in girlhood, already forestalls some of the gravity and reserve that arrive with years.  As for her beauty, there were those who disputed it altogether; and yet even when one had gone so far as to declare that Mary Masters was plain, one had, in justice, to add that she possessed none the less a distinct and delicate charm of her own.  It was a daisy-like charm differing in kind from the charm of Eve Sylvester, which was that of a violet or a child, perpetually perfuming the air.  It could be traced at last—­for she had not a good feature—­to the possession of a pair of very soft, and shy, brown eyes, and of a voice, simply agreeable in conversation, which burgeoned out in song into the richest contralto imaginable, causing her to be known widely in society as “the Miss Masters who sings.”  Indeed, she had a wonderful musical talent, which she had cultivated largely.  Her playing had even approved itself to the difficult Rubinstein; and, although she had a certain reputation for cleverness, the loss to society when she left the music-stool to mingle in it was generally felt not to be met by a corresponding gain; and, indeed, as a rule, people did not consider her separately.  The generality were inclined simply to accept her, in relation to her aunt, Lady Garnett, with whom she had lived since she was a girl of sixteen, as any other of that witty old woman’s impedimenta—­her pug Mefistofele, or her matchless enamels, or her Watteau fans.  As she came towards him now with a cup in her hand, her pale face a little flushed, her dark hair braided very plainly and neatly above her high forehead, Rainham could not help thinking that she would make an adorable old maid.