She was built on queenly lines, carried her head well, and possessed a pretty wrist, and a neatly turned ankle. She looked to have a good deal of humour, and her voice, when she spoke, was low-pitched and pleasing. On one side of her, lounging over a chairback, an exquisite in a striped coat and a powdered wig watched the spin of the table in a negligent, detached fashion; on the other, Mr Ravenscar’s cousin had no eyes for anything but Miss Grantham’s face.

Miss Grantham, seeing a stranger crossing the room in Mr Crewe’s wake, looked critically at him. Trained by necessity to sum up a man quickly, she was yet hard put to it to place Mr Ravenscar. His plain coat, the absence of any jewels or furbelows, did not argue a fat bank-roll, but his air was one of unconscious assurance, as though he was accustomed to going where he chose, and doing what he pleased in any company. If at first glance she had written him down as a country bumpkin, this impression was swiftly corrected. He might be carelessly dressed, but no country tailor had fashioned that plain coat, she decided.

She turned her head towards the middle-aged exquisite leaning on the chairback. “Who is our new friend, my lord? A Puritan come amongst us?”

The exquisite languidly raised a quizzing-glass, and levelled it. Under its elaborate maquillage his thin, handsome face was curiously lined. His brows went up. “That is no Puritan,, my dear,” he said, in a light, bored voice. “It is a very fat pigeon indeed. In fact, it is Ravenscar.”

This pronouncement brought young Lord Mablethorpe’s head round with a jerk. He stared incredulously at his cousin, and ejaculated: “Max!”

There was astonishment in his tone, not unmixed with suspicion. His fair countenance flushed boyishly, making him look younger than ever, and not a little guilty. He stepped forward, saying rather defensively: “I did not expect to see you here!”