Some of those who were present at Mrs. Grainger’s that evening remember her entrance into the drawing-room.  Her gown, the colour of a rose-tinted cloud, set off the exceeding whiteness of her neck and arms and vied with the crimson in her cheeks, and the single glistening string of pearls about the slender column of her neck served as a contrast to the shadowy masses of her hair.  Mr. Reginald Farwell, who was there, afterwards declared that she seemed to have stepped out of the gentle landscape of an old painting.  She stood, indeed, hesitating for a moment in the doorway, her eyes softly alight, in the very pose of expectancy that such a picture suggested.

Honora herself was almost frightened by a sense of augury, of triumph, as she went forward to greet her hostess.  Conversation, for the moment, had stopped.  Cecil Grainger, with the air of one who had pulled aside the curtain and revealed this vision of beauty and innocence, crossed the room to welcome her.  And Mrs. Grainger herself was not a little surprised; she was not a dramatic person, and it was not often that her drawing-room was the scene of even a mild sensation.  No entrance could have been at once so startling and so unexceptionable as Honora’s.

“I was sorry not to find you when I called,” she said.  “I was sorry, too,” replied Mrs. Grainger, regarding her with an interest that was undisguised, and a little embarrassing.  “I’m scarcely ever at home, except when I’m with the children.  Do you know these people?”

“I’m not sure,” said Honora, “but—­I must introduce my husband to you.”

“How d’ye do!” said Mr. Grainger, blinking at her when this ceremony was accomplished.  “I’m awfully glad to see you, Mrs. Spence, upon my word.”

Honora could not doubt it.  But he had little time to express his joy, because of the appearance of his wife at Honora’s elbow with a tall man she had summoned from a corner.

“Before we go to dinner I must introduce my cousin, Mr. Chiltern—­he is to have the pleasure of taking you out,” she said.

His name was in the class of those vaguely familiar:  vaguely familiar, too, was his face.  An extraordinary face, Honora thought, glancing at it as she took his arm, although she was struck by something less tangible than the unusual features.  He might have belonged to any nationality within the limits of the Caucasian race.  His short, kinky, black hair suggested great virility, an effect intensified by a strongly bridged nose, sinewy hands, and bushy eyebrows.  But the intangible distinction was in the eyes that looked out from under these brows the glimpse she had of them as he bowed to her gravely, might be likened to the hasty reading of a chance page in a forbidden book.  Her attention was arrested, her curiosity aroused.  She was on that evening, so to speak, exposed for and sensitive to impressions.  She was on the threshold of the Alhambra.

“Hugh has such a faculty,” complained Mr. Grainger, “of turning up at the wrong moment!”