“I’ve not a doubt of it,” was the answer, given with a laugh. “My dear Mrs. Pomeroy, I have been in a hurry for the last six weeks, and it’s a frightful state of things. You’ve had a capital meeting, though. Why, I believe I am actually the only defaulter!” The hard blue eyes were moving rapidly over the room as Mrs. Romayne spoke; there was an eager comprehensive glance in them as though the survey taken was in some sense a survey of material or--at one instant--of a battle-ground; and it gave a certain unreality to their carelessness. “The only defaulter. Yes,” agreed Mrs. Pomeroy comfortably. “And now, Mrs. Romayne, you must let me introduce you to a new member of our committee; quite an acquisition! Why, where--oh!” and serenely oblivious of the stony stare with which Lady Bracondale, a few paces off, was regarding the opposite wall of the room just over the newcomer’s bonnet, Mrs. Pomeroy, with her kind fat hand on Mrs. Romayne’s arm, approached the exclusive acquisition. “Let me introduce Mrs. Romayne, dear Lady Bracondale!” she said with unimpaired placidity. The stony stare was lowered an inch or two until it was about on a level with Mrs. Romayne’s eyebrows, and Lady Bracondale bowed icily; but at the same moment Mrs. Romayne held out her hand with a graceful little exclamation of surprise. It was not genuine, though it sounded so; those keen, quick, blue eyes had seen Lady Bracondale and recognised her in the course of their owner’s progress up the room, and had observed her withdrawal of herself those two or three paces from Mrs. Pomeroy’s vicinity; and it was as they rested for an instant only on her in their subsequent survey of the room that that subtle change suggestive of a sense of coming battle had come to them. They looked full into Lady Bracondale’s face now with a smiling ease, which was just touched with a suggestion of pleasure in the meeting. “I hardly know whether we require an introduction,” said Mrs. Romayne; she spoke with cordiality which was just sufficiently careless to be thoroughly “good form.” “It is so many years since we met, though, that perhaps our former acquaintanceship must be considered to have died a natural death. I am very pleased that it should have a resurrection!” She finished with a little light laugh, and Lady Bracondale found, almost to her own surprise, that they were shaking hands. If she had been able to analyse cause and effect--which she was not--she would have known that it was that carelessness in Mrs. Romayne’s manner that influenced her. A powerful prompter to a freezing demeanour is withdrawn when the other party is obviously insensible to cold.