What Lorraine exactly meant by full armour she did not quite know, but it might very well have been taken to mean the shining armour of her own best loveliness. Certainly after no small consideration she chose what she believed to be her most becoming gown, and she was unusually critical about the dressing of her hair. All the same, at 7.45 she was ready, and her cavalier had not yet arrived. She waited five minutes until he came, and then it was necessary to wait another five minutes that he might not know she had been more up to time than he. Then she entered the drawing-room in a little bit of a hurry, and cut short his simple, direct apologies by regretting her own tardiness, and saying she had been out motoring until late. But she had time to note quickly that he also had dressed himself with special care, plastering down resolutely the unruly determination of his fair hair to curl. That was good. Any suggestion of a curl must have produced an effect of effeminacy, whereas that neat, plastered wave showed the shapeliness of his head, and gave him a touch of manly decision. Her electric brougham was at the door, but she kept it waiting a few minutes, that they might be later than the majority of diners, and pass up a well-filled room. In the end their arrival was equal to her best expectations. She led the way slowly, with a queenly grace that was one of her best attributes; but as she nodded casually to an acquaintance here and there, she had plenty of time to observe the curious eyes from all around, looking with undisguised admiration, not so much at her faultless appearance, which was more or less known, but at her striking cavalier. She had engaged a small table at one of the top corners and arranged the seats sideways, so that both could look over the room if they wanted to, and at the same time be easily seen by others. She did this because it amused her to see people gazing at him, and to watch his quiet self-possession. She almost wondered if he even realised how much attention he attracted, but perceived that he could hardly help doing so, though he took it all with so simple and unabashed an air. She watched also to see if, as most of the strikingly handsome men she had known, he courted tell-tale glances from other eyes, and sipped honey from any flower within reach, as well as from his own particular flower. And when she found that his absolute and undivided attention was given to her, and that all the power of entertaining he could muster was called into her service, she felt a glow of gratitude to him that he had not disappointed her, but proved himself the simple, high-bred gentleman she longed to find him. It made her show herself to him at her very best. Not showily witty, nor callously gay, nor fashionably original, but just her own self of light humour and dainty speech and kindly sympathy, the true, best self that held Hal’s unswerving devotion through good account and ill.