She had sunk upon a low divan, in a careless attitude which was full of a kind of regal grace. "I forget if you and my husband know each other?" she asked lightly. There was not the faintest sign of emotion in her tone or her manner. Careless lightness, the airy indifference of a fashionable acquaintance, could not be more distinctly indicated. "I have not yet had the felicity of being made known to Mr. Topsparkle," Lavendale answered, with that perfect manner of his which was exquisitely courteous, and yet gave the lady indifference for indifference. "O, but you must know each other. You have so many ideas in common--you are both travellers, both eccentrics, both much cleverer than the common herd of humanity. Vyvyan, put down your cards for a moment if you can; here is Lord Lavendale, who complains that you have not waited upon him since he returned from the East." "I am vastly to blame," replied Topsparkle, shifting his cards to his left hand and offering the right to Lavendale, a pallid attenuated hand, decorated with a choice intaglio and one other ring, a twice-coiled snake with a black diamond in its head, which looked like a gem with a history; "I am stricken with remorse at the idea of my neglect. But his lordship's appearance in London has been meteoric rather than regular, and I have been for the most part in the country." "The honour of making Mr. Topsparkle's acquaintance is only more precious because it has been deferred," answered Lavendale; and the two gentlemen, after having shaken hands with effusion, acknowledged each other's compliments with stately bows. Mr. Topsparkle resumed his play, and Lavendale seated himself on the divan beside Lady Judith. "Shall I attend you to the dancing-room?" he asked. "No, I am sick to death of the crowd and the heat, and all those fine people," she answered, taking off her mask, and letting him see the loveliness he had once adored. "Did you observe Miss Thornleigh as Iphigenia?" she asked carelessly. "I beheld an exquisite vision of nakedness, like Eve before the fall, at which all the world was gazing. I thought it was meant for our universal mother!" "No, it was Iphigenia." "I stand corrected. Then a scanty drapery of silvery gauze and a fillet round the brow mean Iphigenia. Now can I understand why Diana rejected the young lady by way of holocaust, and substituted a hind at the final moment. Such unclothed loveliness must have appalled the modest goddess." Lady Judith laughed behind her fan, and shrugged her beautiful shoulders in the loose Turkish robe, which was decency itself in comparison with Miss Thornleigh's audacious transparency of raiment. Everything is a question of degree, and to be half naked in those days was only modish; but there was a boundary-line, and the beautiful Miss Thornleigh was considered to have overstepped it.