Mrs. Hannay had every appearance of having risen to it. Anne's entrance (she was impressive in her entrances) set the standard high; yet Mrs. Hannay rose. When agreeably excited Mrs. Hannay was accustomed to move from one end of her drawing-room to the other with the pleasing and impalpable velocity of all soft round bodies inspired by gaiety. So exuberant was the softness of the little lady and so voluminous her flying frills, that at these moments her descent upon her guests appeared positively winged like the descent of cherubim. To-night she advanced slowly from her hearth-rug with no more than the very slightest swaying and rolling of all her softness, the very faintest tremor of her downy wings. Mrs. Hannay's face was the round face of innocence, the face of a cherub with blown cheeks and lips shaped for the trumpet.
"My dear Mrs. Majendie—at last." She retained Mrs. Majendie's hand for the moment of presenting her to her husband. By this gesture she appropriated Mrs. Majendie, taking her under her small cherubic wing. "Wallie, how d'you do?" Her left hand furtively appropriated Mrs. Majendie's husband. Anne marked the familiarity with dismay. It was evident that at the Hannays' Walter was in the warm lap of intimacy.
It was evident, too, that Mr. Hannay had married considerably beneath him. Anne owned that he had a certain dignity, and that there was something rather pleasing in his loose, clean-shaven face. The sharp slenderness of youth was now vanishing in a rosy corpulence, corpulence to which Mr. Hannay resigned himself without a struggle. But above it the delicate arch of his nose attested the original refinement of his type. His mouth was not without sweetness, Mr. Hannay being as indulgent to other people as he was to himself.
He received Anne with a benign air; he assured her of his delight in making her acquaintance; and he refrained from any allusions to the long delay of his delight.
Little Mrs. Hannay was rolling softly in another direction.
"Canon Wharton, let me present you to Mrs. Walter Majendie."
She had risen to Canon Wharton. For she had said to her husband: "You must get the Canon. She can't think us such a shocking bad lot if we have him." Her face expressed triumph in the capture of Canon Wharton, triumph in the capture of Mrs. Walter Majendie, triumph in the introduction. Owing to the Hannays' determination to rise to it, the dinner-party, in being rigidly select, was of necessity extremely small.
"Miss Mildred Wharton—Sir Rigley Barker—Mr. Gorst. Now you all know each other."
The last person introduced had lingered with a certain charming diffidence at Mrs. Majendie's side. He was a man of about her husband's age, or a little younger, fair and slender, with a restless, flushed face and brilliant eyes.
"I can't tell you what a pleasure this is, Mrs. Majendie."