'At last?'
'And he has brought a friend.'
'Indeed! He might have done me the honour to inquire if his friend's visit would be agreeable. What kind of person?'
'I have no idea. I didn't look at him. Maulevrier is looking so well. They will be here in a minute. May I order dinner for them?'
'Of course, they must have dinner,' said her ladyship, resignedly, as if the whole thing were an infliction; and Mary ran out and interviewed the butler, begging that all things might be made particularly comfortable for the travellers. It was nine o'clock, and the servants were enjoying their eventide repose.
Having given her orders, Mary went back to the drawing-room, impatiently expectant of her brother's arrival, for which event Lesbia and her grandmother waited with perfect tranquillity, the dowager calmly continuing the perusal of her Times, while Lesbia sat at her piano in a shadowy corner, and played one of Mendelssohn's softest Lieder. To these dreamy strains Maulevrier and his friend presently entered.
'How d'ye do, grandmother? how do, Lesbia? This is my very good friend and Canadian travelling companion, Jack Hammond—Lady Maulevrier, Lady Lesbia.'
'Very glad to see you, Mr. Hammond,' said the dowager, in a tone so purely conventional that it might mean anything. 'Hammond? I ought to remember your family—the Hammonds of----'
'Of nowhere,' answered the stranger in the easiest tone; 'I spring from a race of nobodies, of whose existence your ladyship is not likely to have heard.'