At that moment, and before my really angry mother could answer, the door was opened, and there entered Jane Mullins in her usual sensible, downright silken gown, and a tall man. I glanced at him for a puzzled moment, feeling sure that I had seen him before, and yet not being quite certain. He had good features, was above the medium height, had a quiet manner and a sort of distant bearing which would make it impossible for any one to take liberties with him.
Miss Mullins brought him straight across the room to mother and introduced him. I caught the name, Randolph. Mother bowed, and so did he, and then he stood close to her, talking very quietly, but so effectively, that Miss Armstrong, after staring for a moment, had to vanish nonplussed into a distant corner of the drawing-room. I saw by the way that young lady's eyes blazed that she was now intensely excited. Mother and I had startled and confused her a good deal, and Mr. Randolph finished the dazzling impression her new home was giving her. Certainly she had not expected to see a person of his type here. She admired him, I saw at a glance, immensely, and now stood near her own mother, shaking her head now and then in an ominous manner, and whispering audibly.
Suddenly Jane, who was here, there, and everywhere, whisked sharply round.
"Don't you know Mr. Randolph, Miss Wickham?" she said.
I shook my head. She took my hand and brought me up to mother's side.
"Mr. Randolph," she said, "this is our youngest hostess, Miss Westenra Wickham."
Mr. Randolph bowed, said something in a cold, courteous tone, scarcely glanced at me, and then resumed his conversation with mother.
CHAPTER IX
THE ARTIST'S EYE
During dinner I found myself seated next Miss Armstrong. Miss Armstrong was on one side of me, and her mother was at the other. I don't really know how I got placed between two such uncongenial people, but perhaps it was good for me, showing me the worst as well as the best of our position at once. I was having a cold douche with a vengeance.
As we were taking our soup (I may as well say that the ménu was excellent, quite as good as many a grand West End dinner which I had attended in my palmy days), Miss Armstrong bent towards me, spilling a little of her soup as she did so, and said, in a somewhat audible whisper—