Then she broke off with a charming smile to shake hands with Mrs. Halse, brought by the constant shifting of the groups into her vicinity. Mrs. Romayne was an excellent listener, and reputed a good talker, though she had probably never said a witty or a clever thing in her life; but she was never exclusive; she was always, so to speak, more or less in touch with the whole room, and ready to extend her circle. “I’ve been making for you for hours,” she said gaily. “Ah!” The word was an exclamation of pleased surprise as she suddenly became aware of a girl’s figure behind Mrs. Halse; a girl’s figure much better dressed than had been its wont, and very erect, with a latent touch of triumph and excitement on the pretty face. It was Miss Hilda Newton. “I did not know you were in London,” went on Mrs. Romayne, holding out her hand with gracious cordiality. “She is staying with me on most important business,” said Mrs. Halse. Mrs. Halse had accommodated herself to her increasing portliness by this time, and had apparently thought it necessary to increase the exuberance of her manner proportionately. Her voice, and the laugh with which she spoke, were equally loud. “Trousseau, you must know. She is to be married directly after Christmas. And when I heard it I wrote and said she’d better come straight to me, and then I could see that she got the right things. Of course, as she’s to live in town, she must have the right things, you know.” “Of course,” assented Mrs. Romayne gaily and airily. “And you are very busy?” The last words were addressed to Hilda Newton, whose hand Mrs. Romayne still held. There was a curious mixture of resentment, defiance, and triumph in the girl’s face as she confronted the suave, smiling countenance of the elder woman, which just touched her voice as she answered: “Very busy indeed!” She was conscious of a desire so to frame her answer as to suggest the position in society which was to be hers on her marriage, but she could think of no words in which to do it. “And where is Master Julian?” broke in Mrs. Halse. Delicacy and tact had never been more than names with her; as her fibre, mental and physical, coarsened, she was beginning to think it quite unnecessary to maintain even a bowing acquaintance with these qualities; and her strident voice expressed a great deal that Hilda Newton would like to have expressed. “He must be made to come and offer his congratulations--or perhaps Hilda will compound with him for a particularly handsome wedding-present. He knows Talbot Compton, of course? Otherwise, they must be introduced.” “He is not here this afternoon, I’m sorry to say,” returned his mother, smiling. Mr. Stormont-Eade, if he could have recognised “the feeling of the moment” in this particular crisis, might have learnt a lesson on several points. “He has turned into a tremendously hard worker, you know. An astonishing fact, isn’t it? I tell him he has secret intentions of taking the bench by storm.”