Considerably younger than her husband, and only comparatively recently married, she too was one of those tantalizingly complex personalities which only an old landed aristocracy can evolve. Born in Latvia, and educated in a pensionnat hard by Warsaw, she was at once _mondaine_ and mystic. Her keen sense of social values would have shamed Debrett or Burke themselves, but at the same time she appeared to be an eager searcher after the greater and more eternal aspects of Truth, an untiring student of Burnt Njal and other Oriental works upon religion, and indefatigable in her study of the lesser-known works of Freud, of which she read even the appendices; (the German language presented few difficulties to her.) “Delighted,” murmured Gaveston, as the other guests were presented to him. “The usual set!” he said inwardly. So _that_ was Sir Nicholas Gomme, was it? Gaveston looked at him with interest, for the famous Irish Secretary had been specially asked, he knew, to meet the rising young man from Wallace. How many chapters of contemporary history had not risen Minerva-like from that quasi-Napoleonic cranium! Free Trade legislation, _concerti_, wars and rumours of wars, sonnets, bridge-debts, and snuff-boxes. Nothing was too modern to appeal to his vivid imagination; he was an admitted adept in New thought and _Art Nouveau_, and had acquired a deserved reputation in three continents for his philately. A man who had lived! And Gaveston looked at Sir Nicholas’ silvering hair not without respect. And there was Tierra del Fuego, the painter of the moment. Gaveston had last seen him in the Régale, in those ludicrously far-off days of his Bohemian life in London. He painted everything in curves. In Chelsea they spoke of him reverently as _Le père du globisme_, but, like many an original theorist, he was a poor conversationalist. “_La ligne droite, voilà l’ennemi!_” he would interject repeatedly and ferociously. But fortunately this, his only, constatation usually fitted well into most discussions, artistic, political, or financial. Close by stood the venerable Bishop of Barset, his shrewd kindly eyes blinking benignly at all around. “_Such_ a favourite of mine,” whispered Lady Jordan to Gaveston. “_So_ broad-minded!” And there was Major-General Tremullion, ablaze with the decorations of the Irish War. Gav had once pilloried him in an article as “apparently wishing to die as hard as he had lived.” And deep in conversation beside the roaring hearth stood the representatives of contemporary literature: Ermyntrude Tropes, who lived on the novels she published about her friends, and the immaculate figure of Augustus Tollendale, who lived on the novels he was dissuaded from publishing about his. But the party was apparently still one short. “I can’t think where Bladge can be, Mr. ffoulis,” said Lady Jordan, who looked a trifle distracted; “I wanted you to take her in. But really we can’t wait.”