She was never seen to pat her curls into place, or to cast an anxious glance towards the mirror. No less a personage than Mr Brummell had taught her this magnificent unconcern. "Once having assured yourself that your dress is perfect in every detail," had pronounced that oracle, "you must not give it another thought. No one, I fancy, has ever seen me finger my cravat, twitch at the lapels of my coat, or smooth creases from my sleeve."

So the Lady Barbara, in a shimmering golden gown of spangles which clung to her tall shape as though it had been moulded to it, with her gold toenails, and her cluster of red curls threaded with a golden fillet, was apparently quite oblivious of being the most daringly dressed lady in the room. Fifty pairs of eyes were fixed upon her, some in patent disapproval, some in equally patent admiration, and she did not betray by as much as a flicker of an eyelid that she was aware of being a cynosure. That dreadfully disarming smile of hers swept across her face, and she moved towards Lady Worth, and held out her hand, saying in her oddly boyish voice: "How do you do? Is your little boy well?"

In spite of the fact that Judith had been by no means pleased, three months before, to see her infant son entranced by the Lady Barbara's charms, this speech could not but gratify her. "Very well, thank you," she replied. "Have you been back in Brussels long?"

"No, two days only."

"I did not know you had the intention of returning."

"Oh - ! London was confoundedly flat," said Bab carelessly.

Miss Devenish, who had never before heard such a mannish expression on a lady's lips, stared. Lady Barbara glanced down at her from her graceful height, and then looked at Judith, her brows asking a question. A little unwillingly - but, after all, it was not likely that Bab would waste more than two minutes of her time on little Lucy Devenish - Judith made the necessary introduction. The smile and the hand were bestowed; Barbara made a movement with her fan, including in the group the officer on whose arm she had entered the salon. "Lady Worth, do you known M. le Capitaine Comte de Lavisse?"