He fell away from her in mock surprise and despair, and was about to reply, when the portières were drawn aside and Mrs. Stanhope saw coming into the room a very beautiful young girl, with a rather childish, mobile face, and magnificent eyes. She seemed to know everyone, and bowed and smiled right and left in an easy, bright sort of way. Mrs. Stanhope would have known this was The Beauty, even if her entrance had not been accompanied by that significant hush and rather ridiculous closing up of the men in her wake. There was a special charm about the soft contour of her face, and the heavy white satin of her gown, though rather old for such a young girl, set off her beauty admirably. “Looks just like one of Goodrich’s girls, doesn’t she?” murmured the man at Mrs. Stanhope’s elbow. But that lady was not paying any attention to his remarks. She was looking in a puzzled fashion at the girl’s face, and wondering what there was about it so familiar. “Isn’t she deliciously beautiful?” he insisted, “and clever! I found it out quite by accident. She’s very careful about letting people know how well informed she is. She’s been to a college somewhere,” he ran on. Mrs. Stanhope was not listening. She was still looking, in a rather abstracted way, at the young girl who was holding a little court on the other side of the room. Her hostess rustled up. “I am going to send my husband to bring The Beauty to you,” she said, laughingly, and swept across the room. In a moment Mrs. Stanhope saw the girl take the Minister’s arm, and, followed on the other side by the Comte de la Tour, start toward her. For some inexplicable reason she felt annoyed, and half wished to avoid the introduction. The newspaper man was interested. Mrs. Stanhope had never posed as a professional beauty, and she was too noble a woman to have her head turned by flattery, but that did not alter the fact that she had been considered the handsomest woman in the American colony at Paris, and, of course, she knew it. He thought it would be interesting to see how the acknowledged beauty received the younger one.