Tom Carringford reassured Margaret in a moment. "How do you do?" he said, and shook her hand. "Don't be afraid of us; it's all right. My governor often spoke of yours, and I have always hoped I should see him some day."
Before she could answer, there stole towards her a girl with a thin, almost haggard, face and two sleepy, dark eyes that looked as if they might burn with every sort of passion. "I have been waiting for you," she said. "Mother has told me about your father. It was splendid of him to bring you." She spoke in a low tone, and, drawing Margaret to a seat near the window, looked at her with an anxious expression in her great eyes, as if she had been worn out with watching for her. "Stay, you don't know Mr. Dawson Farley yet, do you?" She turned towards a man who had risen to make room for them.
"Mrs. Lakeman told us about him just now."
"I'm not as famous as Miss Lakeman thinks." The clear pronunciation caught Margaret's ear, and she looked at him. He was clean-shaven, with a determined mouth and short, crisp hair. There was something hard and even cruel in the face, but there was fascination in it, too—there was fascination in all these new people; the magnetism of knowledge of the world perhaps, the world that had only burst upon her to-day.
"Oh, but I know nothing," she said, shyly. "I came from Chidhurst this morning—for the first time." Lena made a little sympathetic sound, and put her arms out as if to protect her.
"Do you mean that you have never been in London before?" Mr. Farley asked.
"No, never."
"What a wonderful thing!" The words came from a corner near the fireplace. Margaret was getting used to the dimness now, and could see through it. A woman moved towards her; she was not very young, but she was fair and graceful.
"It is Louise Hunstan, dear," Lena said. For some reason she did not know, Margaret recoiled from this girl, who had only known her five minutes, yet called her dear and was affectionate in her manner.
"You must let me look at you," Miss Hunstan said. The twang of which Mrs. Lakeman had spoken was faintly evident, but it gave her words a charm that made it impossible not to listen to them. "Now tell me, do you love it or hate it, or are you just bewildered with this great London?" She seemed to understand the stranger-mood better than the others.