"Very well, but very cross. She scolds me perpetually--I haven't got a skin left. Ah, Sir Wilfrid!--_very_ glad to see you! When did you arrive? I thought I might perhaps find you at the Foreign Office." "I'm going on there presently," said Sir Wilfrid. "Ah, but that's no good. Dine with me to-morrow night?--if you are free? Excellent!--that's arranged. Meanwhile--send him in, mademoiselle--send him in! He's fresh--let him take his turn." And the Minister, grinning, pointed backward over his shoulder towards an inner drawing-room, where the form of an old lady, seated in a wheeled invalid-chair between two other persons, could be just dimly seen. "When the Bishop goes," said Mademoiselle Le Breton, with a laughing shake of the head. "But I told him not to stay long." "He won't want to. Lady Henry pays no more attention to his cloth than to my gray hairs. The rating she has just given me for my speech of last night! Well, good-night, dear lady--good-night. You _are_ better, I think?" Mr. Montresor threw a look of scrutiny no less friendly than earnest at the lady to whom he was speaking; and immediately afterwards Sir Wilfrid, who was wedged in by an entering group of people, caught the murmured words: "Consult me when you want me--at any time." Mademoiselle Le Breton raised her beautiful eyes to the speaker in a mute gratitude. "And five minutes ago I thought her plain!" said Sir Wilfrid to himself as he moved away. "Upon my word, for a _dame de compagnie_ that young woman is at her ease! But where the deuce have I seen her, or her double, before?" He paused to look round the room a moment, before yielding himself to one of the many possible conversations which, as he saw, it contained for him. It was a stately panelled room of the last century, furnished with that sure instinct both for comfort and beauty which a small minority of English rich people have always possessed. Two glorious Gainsboroughs, clad in the subtlest brilliance of pearly white and shimmering blue, hung on either side of the square opening leading to the inner room. The fair, clouded head of a girl, by Romney, looked down from the panelling above the hearth. A gowned abbé, by Vandyck, made the centre of another wall, facing the Gainsboroughs. The pictures were all famous, and had been associated for generations with the Delafield name. Beneath them the carpets were covered by fine eighteenth-century furniture, much of it of a florid Italian type subdued to a delicate and faded beauty by time and use. The room was cleverly broken into various circles and centres for conversation; the chairs were many and comfortable; flowers sheltered tête-à-têtes or made a setting for beautiful faces; the lamps were soft, the air warm and light. A cheerful hum of voices rose, as of talk enjoyed for talking's sake; and a general effect of intimacy, or gayety, of an unfeigned social pleasure, seemed to issue from the charming scene and communicate itself to the onlooker.