"That is it," said Theodora.
"Then you must dance with Hector—my brother," she said.
She launched his name suddenly; she wanted to see what effect it would have on Theodora. "He is sure to be there, and he dances divinely."
She was rewarded for her thrust: just the faintest pink came into the white velvet cheeks, and the blue eyes melted softly. To dance with Hector! Ah! Then the radiance was replaced by a look of sadness, and she said, quietly:
"Oh, I do not think I shall dance at all. My husband is rather an invalid, and we shall only go in for a little while."
No, she must not dance with Hector. Those joys were not for her—she must not even think of it.
"How extraordinarily beautiful she is!" Anne thought, when presently, the visit ended, she found herself rolling along in her electric brougham towards the park. "And I feel I shall love her. I wonder what her Christian name is?"
Theodora had promised they would lunch in Charles Street with her the next day if her husband should be well enough after the ball. And Anne decided to collect as many nice people to meet them as she could in the time.
At the corner of Grosvenor Square she met an old friend, one Colonel Lowerby, commonly called the Crow, and stopped to pick him up and take him on with her.
He was the one person she wanted to talk to at this juncture. She had known him all her life, and was accustomed to prattle to him on all subjects. He was always safe, and gruff, and honest.