The luncheon party was gay enough, in spite of Mr. and Mrs. Wimple’s infatuation for each other, which rendered them, as it were, non-existing for the rest of the party. They gazed upon each other with rapt admiring eyes, and handed each other creams and jellies, and smiled at each other upon the smallest provocation. But to-day Lady Baker suffered them to amuse themselves after their own fashion, and gave all her attention to Geoffrey. If he was not distinguished in the realms of art, he was at least an agreeable young man, who knew how to flatter a lady of fashion on the wrong side of forty without indulging in that florid colouring which awakens doubts of the flatterer’s good faith. He improved his opportunities at luncheon to such good purpose, that when that meal was over, and the devoted Mr. Wimple had been carried off by his wife and the other two ladies to play croquet, Lady Baker volunteered to show Geoffrey the Mardenholme picture-gallery—a very fair collection of modern art, which had been acquired by her ladyship’s father, a great Manchester man; for it was commerce in soft goods which had created the wealth wherewith this lady had endowed Sir Horatio Veering Baker, and whence had arisen all the splendours of Mardenholme. This was the very thing Geoffrey desired, and for which he had been scheming, with the _finesse_ of a Jesuit, during the hospitable meal. He had affected an enthusiast’s love of art, declaring how, from his earliest youth, he had languished to behold the treasures of the Mardenholme gallery. Lady Baker was delighted. ‘My father lived all his later life among artists,’ she said. ‘He made his fortune in commerce, as I daresay you have heard; but in heart he was an artist. I myself have painted a little.’ (What had Lady Baker not done a little?) ‘But music is my grand passion. The pictures were almost all bought off the easel—several of them inspired by my father’s suggestions. He was full of imagination. Come, Mr. Hossack, while those foolish people play croquet we will take a stroll in the gallery.’ She led the way through the wide marble-paved hall, whence ascended a staircase of marble, like that noble one in the Duke of Buccleuch’s palace at Dalkeith, and thence to the gallery, a spacious apartment lighted from the roof. It was here Lady Baker gave her concerts and musical kettledrums, to which half the county came to sip black coffee and eat ices and stare at the pictures, while the lady’s latest discovery in the world of harmony charmed or excruciated their ears, as the case might be. To-day this apartment looked delightfully cool and quiet after the sunlit brightness of the other rooms. A striped canvas blind was drawn over the glass roof, gentle zephyrs floated in through invisible apertures, and a tender half-light prevailed which was pleasant for tired eyes, if not the best possible light for seeing pictures.