It still lacked ten minutes to eleven, but although people were continuing to arrive there was no sign of Peregrine. Judith guessed him to be only too glad of an excuse not to come, for he did not care to dance, but she had never felt more lonely in her life, and hoped every moment to see him walk in.
Mrs. Scattergood, having met with several of her friends, was deep in conversation, but broke off suddenly to dart up to her charge. “Mr. Brummell!” she hissed in Judith’s ear. “Do pray, my love, hold yourself up, and if he should speak to you I implore you remember what it may mean!”
The very mention of any dandy’s name was quite enough at this moment to fan Miss Taverner’s wrath to a flame. She looked anything but conciliating, and when she turned her eyes to the door and observed the gentleman who had just entered, an expression of undisguised contempt swept her face.
A lady in a purple turban adorned with an aigrette bore down upon Mrs. Scattergood, and drew her aside with so much condescension that Judith would hardly have been surprised to learn that it was Queen Charlotte herself. She turned away to enjoy to the full her first sight of Mr. George Bryan Brummell.
She could scarcely forbear to laugh, for surely there could be no greater figure of fun. He stood poised for a moment in the doorway, a veritable puppet, tricked out in such fine clothes that he cast the two gentlemen who were entering behind him in the shade. It could not be better. From his green satin coat to his ridiculously high-heeled shoes he was just what she had expected him to be. His conceit, evidently, was unbounded. He surveyed the room through his quizzing-glass, held at least a foot away from his eye, and went mincing up to Princess Esterhazy, and made her a flourishing bow.
Judith could not take her eyes from him; he was not looking her way, so she might permit herself to smile. Indeed, the wrath had died out of her face, and given place to a twinkling merriment So this was the King of Fashion!
She was recalled to a sense of her surroundings by a quiet voice at her elbow, “I beg pardon, ma’am: I think you have dropped your fan?”
She turned with a start to find that a gentleman whom she recognized as one of the two who had entered behind the Beau was standing beside her, with her fan in his hand. She took it with a word of thanks, and one of her clear, appraising looks. She liked what she saw. The gentleman was of medium height, with light brown hair brushed A la Brutus, and a countenance which, without being precisely handsome, was generally pleasing. There was a good deal of humor about his mouth, and his eyes, which were grey and remarkably intelligent, were set under a pair of most expressive brows. He was very well-dressed, but so unobtrusively that Judith would have been hard put to it to describe what he was wearing.
He returned her look with something of drollery in his eyes. “It is Miss Taverner, is it not?” he asked.
She noticed that his voice was particularly good, and his manner quiet and unassuming. She said with decided friendliness: “Yes, I am Miss Taverner, sir. I don’t know how you should recognize me though, for I think we have not met, have we?”