Marcella laughed rather restively.
"No, I don't think it is," she said; "there are so many of us."
"Oh, but the things you do—Mr. Wharton told me—so interesting!"
Marcella said nothing, and as to her looks the passage was dark. Lady Selina thought her a very handsome but very gauche young woman. Still, gauche or no, she had thrown over Aldous Raeburn and thirty thousand a year; an act which, as Lady Selina admitted, put you out of the common run.
"Do you know most of the people dining?" she enquired in her blandest voice. "But no doubt you do. You are a great friend of Mr. Wharton's, I think?"
"He stayed at our house last year," said Marcella, abruptly. "No, I don't know anybody."
"Then shall I tell you? It makes it more interesting, doesn't it? It ought to be a pleasant little party."
And the great lady lightly ran over the names. It seemed to Marcella that most of them were very "smart" or very important. Some of the smart names were vaguely known to her from Miss Raeburn's talk of last year; and, besides, there were a couple of Tory Cabinet ministers and two or three prominent members. It was all rather surprising.
At dinner she found herself between one of the Cabinet ministers and the young and good-looking private secretary of the other. Both men were agreeable, and very willing, besides, to take trouble with this unknown beauty. The minister, who knew the Raeburns very well, was discussing with himself all the time whether this was indeed the Miss Boyce of that story. His suspicion and curiosity were at any rate sufficiently strong to make him give himself much pains to draw her out.
Her own conversation, however, was much distracted by the attention she could not help giving to her host and his surroundings. Wharton had Lady Selina on his right, and the young and distinguished wife of Marcella's minister on his left. At the other end of the table sat Mrs. Lane, doing her duty spasmodically to Lord Alresford, who still, in a blind old age, gave himself all the airs of the current statesman and possible premier. But the talk, on the whole, was general—a gay and careless give-and-take of parliamentary, social, and racing gossip, the ball flying from one accustomed hand to another.