You must dine here to-night--he is coming. We're
all dining with the Hubbards, and they expect you. They have given
Hermy some very good diamonds--though I should have preferred a
cheque, as she'll be horribly poor. But I think Kate Hubbard means
to do something about the trousseau--Hermy is at Paquin's with her
now. You've no idea how delightful all our friends have been.--Ah,
here is one of them now," she broke off smiling, as the door opened
to admit, without preliminary announcement, a gentleman so glossy
and ancient, with such a fixed unnatural freshness of smile and eye,
that he gave Garnett the effect of having been embalmed and then
enamelled. It needed not the exotic-looking ribbon in the visitor's
button-hole, nor Mrs. Newell's introduction of him as her friend
Baron Schenkelderff, to assure Garnett of his connection with a race
as ancient as his appearance.
Baron Schenkelderff greeted his hostess with paternal playfulness,
and the young man with an ease which might have been acquired on the
Stock Exchange and in the dressing-rooms of "leading ladies.
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