Just before dinner she arrives; there is a little flutter in the hall, a few words, a few steps, and then the door is thrown open, and a young woman, tall, with dark eyes and hair, a nose slightly celestial, and a very handsome figure, enters. She walks swiftly up the room with the grand and upright carriage that belongs to her, and is followed by a tall, fair man, indolent though good to look at, with a straw-colored moustache, and as much whisker as one might swear by.
"Dear auntie, I have come!" says Mrs. Steyne, joyfully, which is a fact so obvious as to make the telling of it superfluous.
"Mabel, my dear, how glad I am to see you!" exclaims Lady Chetwoode, rising and holding out her arms to her. A pretty pink flush comes to life in the old woman's cheeks making her appear ten years younger, and adding a thousand charms to her sweet old face.
They kiss each other warmly, the younger woman with tender empressement.
"It is kind of you to say so," she says, fondly. "And you, auntie—why, bless me, how young you look! it is disgraceful. Presently I shall be the auntie, and you the young and lovely Lady Chetwoode. Darling auntie, I am delighted to be with you again!"
"How do you do, Tom?" Lady Chetwoode says, putting her a little to one side to welcome her husband, but still holding her hand. "I do hope you two have come to stay a long time in the country."
"Yes, until after Christmas, so you will have time to grow heartily sick of us," says Mrs. Steyne. "Ah, Florence."
She and Florence press cheeks sympathetically, as though no evil passages belonging to the past have ever occurred between them. And then Lady Chetwoode introduces Lilian.
"This is Lilian," she says, drawing her forward. "I have often written to you about her."
"My supplanter," remarks Mabel Steyne, turning with a smile that lights up all her handsome brunette face. As she looks at Lilian, fair and soft and pretty, the rather insouciant expression that has grown upon her own during her encounter with Florence fades, and once more she becomes her own gay self. "I hope you will prove a better companion to auntie than I was," she says, with a merry laugh, taking and pressing Lilian's hand. Lilian instinctively returns the pressure and the laugh. There is something wonderfully fetching in Mrs. Steyne's dark, brilliant eyes.