She was shaking hands with her younger visitor as she spoke, a girl of apparently about twenty, very correctly dressed, as pretty as a girl can be with neither colour, expression, nor startlingly correct features, whose eyes are for the most part fastened on the ground. She was Mrs. Pomeroy’s only child. She did not deal Mrs. Romayne the blow which the latter appeared to anticipate, but reassured her in a neatly constructed sentence uttered in a rather demure but perfectly self-possessed voice. Mrs. Halse had been prevented for the moment from monopolising the conversation by reason of her keen interest in the good-looking young man standing by the fireplace; but Miss Pomeroy’s words were hardly uttered before she turned excitedly to Mrs. Romayne. If she was going to make a mistake the disagreeables of the position would be with her hostess, she had decided. “It’s your son, Mrs. Romayne?” she cried. “It must be, surely! Such a wonderful likeness! Only, really, I can hardly believe that your son--I was ridiculous enough to expect quite a boy! Oh, don’t say that he has just arrived and we are interrupting your first _tête-à-tête_! How truly frightful! Let me tell you this moment what I came for and fly!” Mrs. Romayne answered her with a suave smile. “I am going to introduce my boy first, if you don’t mind,” she said, and then as Julian, in obedience to her look, came forward, with the easy alacrity of a young man whose social instincts are of the highly civilised kind, she laid her hand on his arm with an artificial air of affectionate pride, and continued lightly: “Your first London introduction, Julian. Mrs. Ralph Halse, Miss Pomeroy! He has only just arrived, as you guessed,” she added in an aside to Mrs. Halse, “and no doubt he is furiously angry with me for allowing him to be caught with the dust of his journey on him.” But Julian’s anger was not perceptible in his face, or in his manner, which was very pleasant and ready. Even after he had handed tea and cake and subsided into conversation with Miss Pomeroy, Mrs. Halse found it difficult to concentrate herself on the business which had brought her to Chelsea. Her speech to Mrs. Romayne, as to the brilliant idea which had struck her just after the committee broke up, was as voluble as usual, certainly, but less connected than it might have been.