"To ask that horrid woman, and with your Princess for the guest of the evening! She ain't prudish; but I fancy she'll think it a bit steep to find herself rubbing shoulders with Mrs. Bellenden." "I have not invited Mrs. Bellenden." "Someone else has, then. Or else she has come like the lady at Cannes, _invitée ou non_." "Is Mrs. Bellenden here?" "Yes, in the supper-room, in a mob of admirers. Claude took her down to supper." "That's rather tiresome," Vera answered quietly, "for he ought to take the Princess, and I can't keep her waiting. Do be kind, Susie, and go and tell him he must come to the music-room this minute. The Princess ought to have gone down before anybody, and now you say there's a mob." "A perfect bear-garden of greedy beasts. I don't believe there'll be an ortolan left by the time she comes. Anyhow, I'll make it hot for Claude!" and Susie hurried off, elbowing a desperate way through the crowd on the stairs. "Mon dieu, quel four!" she muttered. Vera went back to the sanctuary, impounding her uncle Okehampton on the way, in case she found the friendly Hermione indisposed to wait for her host. She found her Princess with a dark and angry brow, standing near the door, whispering to her attendant lady. She had the look of a Princess who had been "almost waiting," and who did not like the sensation. She heard that Mr. Rutherford was making his way through the crowd to attend upon her, with an air of supreme indifference. "Lord Okehampton is one of my old friends," she said, and took his offered arm without looking at Vera. "Mr. Rutherford can bring Pauline," she said, as they moved away. Pauline was the lady-in-waiting, a colourless spinster of seven-and-thirty, who loved everything the Princess loved, and hated everything she hated, and who dressed like the Princess, only much worse. Lord Okehampton made himself vastly agreeable, and the mob, seeing the royal brow under the tiara, made way for the couple, and there was a table found for the royal lady in an agreeable position, and there were ortolans and peaches without stint; but when Claude came presently with the Honourable Pauline he received a snub so unmistakable that he was glad to carry his Honourable companion to the remotest corner of the room, where he gave her a sumptuous supper, and had the consolation of her sympathy. "The Princess has a heart of gold," she told him, "but her temper is dreadful sometimes, and life is rather difficult with her." "Not quite a bed of roses," said Claude. "It would be ungrateful of me to call it a bed of stinging-nettles," said Pauline, "because as there are five of us at home, all unmarried, I have to do something; and the Princess is wonderfully kind, and then she is so clever and accomplished. She does everything well; but music is her passion."