"Oh. A friend of yours?"
"No, sir. I never saw her until to-day."
Mrs. Aultane bent her head. "Mrs. James? Who is Mrs. James? And the other one, too? I should be glad to know, Mr. Travice Arkell."
"I can't tell you much about them, Mrs. Aultane," returned Travice, suppressing the laugh of mischief in his eye. "I saw them for the first time in the concert-room."
"They came with your relative, Peter Arkell's daughter."
"Exactly so. That is, she came with them."
"Some people from the country, I suppose," concluded Mrs. Aultane, with as much hauteur as she thought it safe to put into her tone. "It is easy to be seen they have no style about them."
Travice laughed and went across the room. He was speaking to the ladies in question, when a gentleman of three or four-and-twenty came up and tapped him on the back.
"Won't you speak to me? It is Travice Arkell, I see, though he has shot up into a man."
One moment's indecision, and Travice took the hand in his. "Anderson! Can it be?"