She had once found the name extremely useful, when in process of being proposed to by an undesirable of the name of Black.
"It's no good," she had said, "I could never marry you, no matter what the state of my feelings. Think how ridiculous we should both be, everybody would call us Black and Tan. Ugh! it sounds like a whisky as well as a dog." Whereat Mr. Black had laughed and they remained friends, which was a great tribute to Lady Tanagra.
Exquisitely pretty, sympathetic, witty, human! Lady Tanagra Bowen was a favourite wherever she went. She seemed incapable of making enemies even amongst her own sex. Her taste in dress was as unerring as in literature and art. Everything she did or said was without effort. She had been proposed to by "half the eligibles and all the ineligibles in London," as Bowen phrased it; but she declared she would never marry until Peter married, and had thus got somebody else to mother him.
At a quarter-past one when Bowen left the War Office, he found Lady Tanagra waiting in her car outside.
"Hullo, Tan!" he cried, "what a brainy idea, picking up the poor, tired warrior."
"It'll save you a taxi, Peter. I'll tell you what to do with the shilling as we go along."
Lady Tanagra smiled up into her brother's face. She was always happy with Peter.
As she swung the car across Whitehall to get into the north-bound stream of traffic, Bowen looked down at his sister. She handled her big car with dexterity and ease. She was a dainty creature with regular features, violet-blue eyes and golden hair that seemed to defy all constraint. There was a tilt about her chin that showed determination, and that about her eyebrows which suggested something more than good judgment.
"I hope you weren't doing anything to-day, Tan," said Bowen as they came to a standstill at the top of Whitehall, waiting for the removal of a blue arm that barred their progress.
"I was lunching with the Bolsovers; but I'm not well enough, I'm afraid, to see them. It's measles, you know."