‘I suspect he would rather have given anything than his money,’ retorted Gerald. They had penetrated to Mrs. Turchill’s corner by this time. That matron was looking the picture of disconsolate solitude—the dowager with whom she had been talking about her servants and her tradespeople having left her to look after a brace of somewhat go-ahead daughters, who in pale blue silk jerseys, and tight cream-coloured cashmere skirts, looked very much as if they were attired for some acrobatic performance. ‘I am so glad you have come,’ exclaimed poor Mrs. Turchill, brightening at the sight of Madoline. ‘The room is dreadfully crowded, and there are so many strangers.’ This was said resentfully, no stranger having any more right to be present, from Mrs. Turchill’s point of view, than Pentheus at his mother’s party. ‘I feel as if I hardly knew a creature here.’ ‘Oh, mother, when there are the Hilldrops, and the Westerns, and the Hilliers, and the Perkinses,’ remonstrated Edgar, running over a string of names. ‘All I can say is that if there are any of my friends in the room no one has taken the trouble to bring them to me,’ retorted Mrs. Turchill. ‘And for any enjoyment I have had from the society of my friends I might as well be at that horrid Academy conversazione for which you took so much trouble to get tickets the year before last, and where I was jammed into a corner of the sculpture room half the evening, with rude young women sitting upon me.’ Here Sir Vernon and Mrs. Ferrers approached, and Mrs. Turchill resumed her company smile in honour of people of such importance. Aunt Rhoda had been exchanging greetings with the cream of the county people during her leisurely progress through the rooms, and felt that her gown was a success, and that the little woman in the Rue Vivienne was worthy of her hire. Everybody was looking at Daphne. Her youth and freshness, her vivid smiles and natural girlish animation, as she conversed now with Edgar, and anon with Gerald, fascinated everyone; it was a manner entirely without reserve, yet with no taint of forwardness or coquetry—the manner of a happy child, whose sum of life was bounded by the delight of the moment, rather than of a woman conscious of her loveliness, and knowing herself admired. ‘Who is that pretty girl in the white satin frock—the girl like an old picture?’ people were asking, somewhat to the annoyance of older stagers in the beauty-trade, who felt that here was a new business opened, which threatened competition, stock-in-trade of the best quality, and perfectly fresh. One young lady, whose charms had suffered the wear and tear of seven seasons, contemplated Daphne languidly through her eye-glass, and summed her up with scornful brevity as ‘the little Gainsborough girl!’ ‘Quite too lovely, for the next six months,’ said another, ‘but her beauty depends entirely on her complexion. A year hence she will have lost all that brightness, and will be a very wishy-washy little person.’