Comus tucked in his underlip with just the shade of pugnacity that she wanted to see.

An advantageous marriage was so obviously the most sensible course for him to embark on that she scarcely dared to hope that he would seriously entertain it; yet there was just a chance that if he got as far as the flirtation stage with an attractive (and attracted) girl who was also an heiress, the sheer perversity of his nature might carry him on to more definite courtship, if only from the desire to thrust other more genuinely enamoured suitors into the background.  It was a forlorn hope; so forlorn that the idea even crossed her mind of throwing herself on the mercy of her bete noire, Courtenay Youghal, and trying to enlist the influence which he seemed to possess over Comus for the purpose of furthering her hurriedly conceived project.  Anyhow, the dinner promised to be more interesting than she had originally anticipated.

Lady Caroline was a professed Socialist in politics, chiefly, it was believed, because she was thus enabled to disagree with most of the Liberals and Conservatives, and all the Socialists of the day.  She did not permit her Socialism, however, to penetrate below stairs; her cook and butler had every encouragement to be Individualists.  Francesca, who was a keen and intelligent food critic, harboured no misgivings as to her hostess’s kitchen and cellar departments; some of the human side-dishes at the feast gave her more ground for uneasiness.  Courtenay Youghal, for instance, would probably be brilliantly silent; her brother Henry would almost certainly be the reverse.

The dinner party was a large one and Francesca arrived late with little time to take preliminary stock of the guests; a card with the name, “Miss de Frey,” immediately opposite her own place at the other side of the table, indicated, however, the whereabouts of the heiress.  It was characteristic of Francesca that she first carefully read the menu from end to end, and then indulged in an equally careful though less open scrutiny of the girl who sat opposite her, the girl who was nobody in particular, but whose income was everything that could be desired.  She was pretty in a restrained nut-brown fashion, and had a look of grave reflective calm that probably masked a speculative unsettled temperament.  Her pose, if one wished to be critical, was just a little too elaborately careless.  She wore some excellently set rubies with that indefinable air of having more at home that is so difficult to improvise.  Francesca was distinctly pleased with her survey.

“You seem interested in your vis-a-vis,” said Courtenay Youghal.

“I almost think I’ve seen her before,” said Francesca; “her face seems familiar to me.”

“The narrow gallery at the Louvre; attributed to Leonardo da Vinci,” said Youghal.

“Of course,” said Francesca, her feelings divided between satisfaction at capturing an elusive impression and annoyance that Youghal should have been her helper.  A stronger tinge of annoyance possessed her when she heard the voice of Henry Greech raised in painful prominence at Lady Caroline’s end of the table.