“Let me introduce my boy, Lady Arden,” she said. “So glad to have the opportunity!” She spoke with an accentuation of that self-conscious, self-deriding maternal pride which was her usual pose, setting, as it were, her tone for the night. And certainly Julian, as he bowed, and then shook the hand Lady Arden held out to him, was a legitimate subject for pride. His sense of the importance of the occasion had given to his manner and expression not only that touch of excitement which made him positively handsome, but a certain added readiness and assurance, by no means presuming and very attractive. Lady Arden’s eyes rested on him with obvious approval, as she said the few words the situation demanded with unusual graciousness, and a sign from her brought one of her daughters to her side. She introduced Julian to the girl. “Take care of Mr. Romayne, Ida,” she said. “He has only lately come to London. Find him some nice partners.” “And let me have him back by-and-by, please, Lady Ida!” laughed Mrs. Romayne, as they passed on with the girl into the room. “There are some friends of his mother’s to whom he must spare a little time to-night.” The gay replies with which Julian and his guide--who after a comprehensive glance at him had shown considerable readiness to do her mother’s bidding--disappeared in the crowd were lost to Mrs. Romayne; her attention was claimed by a man at her elbow. “May I have a dance, Mrs. Romayne?” he said. Mrs. Romayne shook hands and laughed. “Well, really I don’t know,” she said; “I think I must give up dancing from to-night. I’ve got a great grown-up son here, do you know. Look, there he is with Lady Ida Arden! Nice-looking boy, isn’t he? It doesn’t seem the right thing for his mother to be dancing about, now does it?” She laughed again, a gay little laugh, well in the key she had set in her first introduction of Julian, and the man to whom she spoke protested vigorously. “It seems to me exactly the right thing,” he said. “The idea of your having a grown-up son is the preposterous point, don’t you know. Come, I say, Mrs. Romayne, don’t be so horribly hard-hearted!” “But I must introduce him, don’t you see. I must do my duty as a mother.” “Lady Ida is introducing him! She has introduced him to half-a-dozen of the best girls in the room already.” The colloquy, carried on on either side in the lightest of tones, finally ended in Mrs. Romayne’s promising a “turn by-and-by,” and the couple drifted apart; Mrs. Romayne to find acquaintances close at hand. Among the first she met was Lady Bracondale, condescendingly amiable, to whom she pointed out Julian, with laughing self-excuse. He was dancing now, and dancing extremely well. “I am so absurdly proud of him!” she said. “I want to introduce him to you by-and-by, if I can catch him. But dancing men are so inconveniently useful.”