"Rayburn, this is my sister. Carol, Rayburn tells me that he wants to marry you, and I suppose——"
"You needn't suppose anything at all, Vane. I've said yes already. If you and Sir Arthur will only say yes too——"
Vane drew back from her, and looked round toward Sir Arthur and Dora. Rayburn, having gone through the formalities of introduction which Vane's tact had made necessary, held out his hand and they shook hands.
"It is rather unceremonious, Miss Maxwell," he said, addressing her for the first time by a name that was not her own, "but——"
"But, my dear Carol, you are forgetting that you are hostess to-night," said Sir Arthur, "and I think there are two of our guests who have not been, as one would say in Society, properly introduced."
"Oh, of course; I'm so sorry," said Carol. "Dora, forgive me. I know you will. I was too happy just now to think of anything else. Mr. Ernshaw, this is Dora. Dora, this is Mr. Ernshaw. I hope you will be very good friends. That's a rather unconventional way of introduction, I must say."
As the last words left her laughing lips, and she was looking exquisitely dainty and desirable in a quietly magnificent costume which had cost as much as many much advertised wedding dresses, Dora and Ernshaw faced each other for the first time. She had seen him with Vane at the ordination service in Worcester Cathedral, but they had never met before under the sanction of social acquaintance.
She looked at him and he looked at her, and as their eyes met some impulse in the soul of both made them hold out their hands as people do not usually do when they are introduced in ordinary drawing-room style. Ernshaw's went out straight.
"Miss Russell," he said, even while her hand was moving slowly towards his.