"'After long years,'" quotes Mrs. Curzon, with mock romance in her tones. "Generally, I think," she adds, with a little yawn, "we can never get rid of our people, the world is so small, and there is really only one set in it that is decent, so we can't ever get out of it. It must have been very nice in Romeo and Juliet's days, when a little drive to Mantua took you into realms wholly inaccessible to your Verona acquaintances. Nowadays, if you run away from anybody in London you are sure to run against them in Yeddo or Yucatan." "Constancy made easy, like the three R's," says Gervase. "Unfortunately, despite our improved facilities, we are not constant." "He means to imply that he threw over the Sabaroff," thinks Mrs. Curzon; "but he is such a boaster of his _bonnes fortunes_ that one can never know whether he is lying." "Pray let me make you known to Madame Sabaroff," says Lady Usk to him, a little later. "She is such a very dear friend of mine, and I see you have been looking at her ever since she entered the room." "She is a very handsome person: any one would look at her," replies her cousin. Were he not so perfectly well-bred and impassive, it might almost be said that the suggested presentation fills him with some vague nervousness. Nina Curzon watches him inquisitively as he is led up and presented to Madame Sabaroff. "I think I have had the honor before now, in Petersburg," murmurs Gervase. She looks at him very coldly. "I think not," she replies. The words are of the simplest, but _c'est le ton qui fait la musique_, and, for the solitary time in his existence, Lord Gervase is embarrassed. Brandolin, playing with the colley dog near at hand, listens and observes. Lady Usk is not so observant. "It is a long time since he was in Russia," she says to her friend, "I dare say you have forgotten. His father was alive, and his name was Baird then, you know." Xenia Sabaroff makes a little polite gesture expressive of entire indifference to the change in these titles. With an action which would be rude in any woman less high-bred, she turns away her head and speaks to Brandolin, ignoring the acquaintance and the presence of Gervase. Across the good-natured and busy brain of her hostess there flashes an electric and odious thought: is it possible that Usk may be right, and that there may be something wrong, after all, in this her latest and most adored friend? She feels that she will die of suffocated curiosity if she do not speedily get her cousin alone and learn all he has ever known or heard of the Princess Sabaroff. "A snub direct!" whispers Lawrence Hamilton to Mr. Wootton. "Or a cut direct: which?" says that far-sighted gentleman. "Anyhow, it's delightful to see him let in for it," reflects Usk, who has also observed the incident from where he stands by the liqueurs.