"Do you see Lady Maxwell?" said Letty, in his ear.
George looked to his right, and perceived the lady in question. She also recognised him at once, and bowed, but without rising. She was the centre of a group of people, who were gathered round her and the small table on which she was leaning, and they were so deeply absorbed in the conversation that had been going on that they hardly noticed the entrance of Tressady and his companion.
"Leven has a party, you see," said the under-secretary. "Blaythwaite was to have taken them in—couldn't at the last moment; so they had to come in here. This is your side of the room! But none of your guests have come yet. Dinner at the House in the winter is a poor sort of business, Miss Sewell. We want the Terrace for these occasions."
He led the young girl to a sofa at the further end of the room, and made himself agreeable, to him the easiest process in the world. He was a fashionable and charming person, in the most irreproachable of frock-coats, and Letty was soon at her ease with him, and mistress of all her usual arts and graces.
"You know Lady Maxwell?" he said to her, with a slight motion of the head towards the distant group.
Letty replied; and while she and her companion chattered, George, who was standing behind them, watched the other party.
They were apparently in the thick of an argument, and Lady Maxwell, whose hands were lightly clasped on the table in front of her, was leaning forward with the look of one who had just shot her bolt, and was waiting to see how it would strike.
It struck apparently in the direction of her vis-à-vis, Sir Frank Leven, for he bent over to her, making a quick reply in a half-petulant boy's voice. He had been three years in the House, but had still the air of an Eton "swell" in his last half.
Lady Maxwell listened to what he had to say, a sort of silent passion in her face all the time—a noble passion nobly restrained.
When he stopped, George caught her reply.