"Why anti-Maxwell," said Letty, puzzled. "I thought it was Mr. Dowson you are going to attack?" George, a little vexed that she should require it, began to explain that as Maxwell was "only a miserable peer," he could have nothing to do with the House of Commons, and that Dowson was the official mouthpiece of the Maxwell group and policy in the Lower House. "The hands were the hands of Esau," etc. Letty meanwhile, conscious that she was not showing to advantage, flushed, began to play nervously with her fan, and wished that George would leave off. Fontenoy did nothing to assist George's political lesson. He stood impassive, till suddenly he tried to look across his immediate neighbours, and then said, turning to Letty: "The Maxwells, I see, are here to-night." He nodded towards a group on the left, some two or three benches behind them. "Are you an admirer of Lady Maxwell's, Miss Sewell?--you've seen her, of course?" "Oh yes, _often_!" said Letty, annoyed by the question, standing, however, eagerly on tiptoe. "I know her, too, a little; but she never remembers me. She was at the Foreign Office on Saturday, with such a _hideous_ dress on--it spoilt her completely." "Hideous!" said Fontenoy, with a puzzled look. "Some artist--I forget who--came and raved to me about it; said it was like some Florentine picture--I forget what--don't think I ever heard of it." Letty looked contemptuous. Her expression said that in this matter, at any rate, she knew what she was talking about. Nevertheless her eyes followed the dark head Fontenoy had pointed out to her. Lady Maxwell was at the moment the centre of a large group of people, mostly men, all of whom seemed to be eager to get a word with her, and she was talking with great animation, appealing from time to time to a tall, broad-shouldered gentleman, with greyish hair, who stood, smiling and silent, at the edge of the group. Letty noticed that many glasses from the balcony were directed to this particular knot of persons; that everybody near them, or rather every woman, was watching Lady Maxwell, or trying to get a better view of her. The girl felt a secret pang of envy and dislike. The figure of a well-known accompanist appeared suddenly at the head of the staircase leading from the artists' room. The interval was over, and the audience began to subside into attention. Fontenoy bowed and took his leave. "You see, he _didn't_ introduce me," said Letty, not without chagrin, as she settled down. "And how plain he is! I think him uglier every time I see him."