Miss Mullins brought him straight across the room to mother and introduced him. I caught the name, Randolph. Mother bowed, and so did he, and then he stood close to her, talking very quietly, but so effectively, that Miss Armstrong, after staring for a moment, had to vanish nonplussed into a distant corner of the drawing-room. I saw by the way that young lady's eyes blazed that she was now intensely excited. Mother and I had startled and confused her a good deal, and Mr. Randolph finished the dazzling impression her new home was giving her. Certainly she had not expected to see a person of his type here. She admired him, I saw at a glance, immensely, and now stood near her own mother, shaking her head now and then in an ominous manner, and whispering audibly. Suddenly Jane, who was here, there, and everywhere, whisked sharply round. "Don't you know Mr. Randolph, Miss Wickham?" she said. I shook my head. She took my hand and brought me up to mother's side. "Mr. Randolph," she said, "this is our youngest hostess, Miss Westenra Wickham." Mr. Randolph bowed, said something in a cold, courteous tone, scarcely glanced at me, and then resumed his conversation with mother. CHAPTER IX THE ARTIST'S EYE During dinner I found myself seated next Miss Armstrong. Miss Armstrong was on one side of me, and her mother was at the other. I don't really know how I got placed between two such uncongenial people, but perhaps it was good for me, showing me the worst as well as the best of our position at once. I was having a cold douche with a vengeance. As we were taking our soup (I may as well say that the ménu was excellent, quite as good as many a grand West End dinner which I had attended in my palmy days), Miss Armstrong bent towards me, spilling a little of her soup as she did so, and said, in a somewhat audible whisper-- "I wish you would give me a hint about him." "About whom?" I asked in return. "Mr. Randolph; he is one of the most stylish people I have ever met. What are his tastes? Don't you know anything at all about him? Is he married, for instance?" "I never saw Mr. Randolph before, and I know nothing about him," I answered in a low, steady voice, which was in marked contrast to Miss Armstrong's buzzing, noisy whisper. "Oh my!" said that young lady, returning again to the contemplation of her soup. Her plate was taken away, and in the interval she once more led the attack. "He _is_ distingué," she said, "quite one of the upper ten. I wish you _would_ tell me where you met him before. You must have met him before, you know; he would not come to a house like this if he was not interested in you and your mother. He is a very good-looking man; I admire him myself immensely." "I don't care to make personal remarks at dinner," I said, looking steadily at the young lady. "Oh my!" she answered again to this; but as some delicious turbot was now facing her, she began to eat it, and tried to cover her mortification.