A man-servant opened the door. Mrs. Marchmont was at home. He led Minna upstairs to the drawing-room, announced her, and departed. It was a large, handsome, tastefully furnished London drawing-room, having very little about it of the usual serpent’s trail. Fulvia rose from a low chair which stood beside a small table covered with newspapers and periodicals. ‘It is very good of you to come. Put off your mantle--so. When I have a friend with me, I hate to see her looking as if next moment she would be going away. And your hat--so. You are not changed one bit, cara signora,’ she added, with more warmth and approachableness of manner than she had yet displayed. Minna said little. Her heart was very full. Fulvia led her to a sofa near the window, placed her there, and sat down beside her. She was exquisitely dressed in a sort of morning gown of muslin, lace and ribbons. One portion of her bargain at any rate had been kept, the side of luxury, of which Fulvia had spoken with assumed enthusiasm to Minna, when she had first made her her confidant on the subject of her engagement. There was a sumptuousness in the young woman’s entire appearance which was carried out to the minutest details of her attire and its appointments. Minna looked at her, and her artist’s eye, as well as that of human affection, took it all in, and contrasted it with the little blue woollen frock of former days. ‘We will have lunch first, and then go to see my husband,’ said Fulvia, and to Minna, in whom the recollection of the past was so vivid, it was a mystery how she could utter those two words, ‘my husband,’ and wear that slight, cool smile, look at her interlocutor with those clear, limpid eyes, and carry herself with such unembarrassed ease. Lunch was announced, and they went downstairs. They were alone, and they talked about a great many things. Fulvia appeared to be very candid, very cheerful, and very indifferent. She told Minna of many things that ‘they’ had done at different times since her marriage. The only peculiarity which Minna noticed about her conversation was that it never referred to anything earlier than two or three years back. As to the first year or two of her marriage, or what she had done or seen then, or where she had been, she was absolutely silent, except that once she casually mentioned having been in Australia; and when Minna incautiously asked when, she said, with a sudden freezing coolness of tone, ‘Oh, it was about four years ago.’ They seemed to have passed a good deal of time at Vienna, perhaps the most absolutely frivolous capital in Europe, as Minna recollected. There, from Fulvia’s account, they had met personages a good deal connected with politics and diplomacy, and she, at least, had made a success in rather exclusive circles. She spoke with regret of not having been able to devote herself to this life.