"When do you suggest we should put in an appearance at Mrs. L'Estrange's?" he asked presently.
"It will take us another half-hour to get through this abundant meal. You will then have your coffee, and you will want a good and long cigar. We began rather late, you will remember. By the time you have got through your smoke, we will make a move. We shall then find them in full swing."
Guy nodded, and went on with his dinner. He was quite willing to go to the L'Estrange flat: he had no other engagement this evening, and it would be something to do. But he was not greatly interested about meeting the most beautiful girl in London. In spite of his friend's almost lyrical outbursts, he expected that Miss Stella Keane would prove a very ordinary young woman.
Suddenly Tommy Esmond uttered an exclamation. "Look, there they are," he whispered excitedly across the table. "Mrs. L'Estrange and her cousin. The man with them is Colonel Desmond, the man who won the Victoria Cross in the Boer war."
Tommy's round face was red with pleasurable emotion. Was there any doubt, thought Spencer, that the little man was tremendously smitten by the beautiful Miss Keane? would it result in a marriage, he wondered? Tommy was well-off, and a person of some importance in his little social world. And if Miss Keane was as lovely as his fond imagination painted her, it was quite evident that she was poor. Penniless young girls have before now accepted the shelter of a safe home, even when offered by comical-looking little elderly men.
The three newcomers moved to a vacant table; Mrs. L'Estrange, a woman of middle age, dressed rather more youthfully than was quite in good taste, their escort, a tall figure in khaki, very upright and soldierly in his bearing, in spite of his sixty years, and last, but by no means least, the beautiful Miss Keane.
Yes, at the first glance, the young man decided that she fully deserved his friend's somewhat extravagant praise. If everybody in London was not raving over her, it was simply due to the fact that her cousin's circle was not important, and that she had found nobody of sufficient social influence to launch her with the necessary cachet.
If she had made her début at one of the great houses, stamped with the approval of any one of London's distinguished hostesses, Society journals would have gone into rhapsodies over her, and she would have been one of the reigning beauties of the hour, far, far beyond the aspirations of little Tommy Esmond.
His own special taste rather inclined towards fair women, his cousin, Lady Nina, of whom he was very fond, being a charming specimen of that type. But he was no bigot in the matter of feminine beauty, and he was prepared to admit that there were some dark women who could compare favourably with their blonde sisters.
But Stella Keane was not very dark. She had soft brown eyes, glossy dark hair, and a beautiful creamy complexion, a mouth like Cupid's bow, revealing when she smiled, teeth of a dazzling ivory. Her figure would have been pronounced perfect by the most critical and fastidious artist.