could readily be differentiated, for the General's whiskers broadened
down his cheeks till they reached his moustaches, and there was in his
face and manner a sort of formal, though discontented, effacement, as of
an individualist who has all his life been part of a system, from which
he has issued at last, unconscious indeed of his loss, but with a vague
sense of injury. He had never married, feeling it to be comparatively
useless, owing to Horace having gained that year on him at the start,
and he lived with a valet close to his club in Pall Mall.

In Lady Maiden, whom he had taken in to dinner, Worsted Skeynes
entertained a good woman and a personality, whose teas to Working Men in
the London season were famous. No Working Man who had attended them
had ever gone away without a wholesome respect for his hostess. She was
indeed a woman who permitted no liberties to be taken with her in any
walk of life. The daughter of a Rural Dean, she appeared at her best
when seated, having rather short legs. Her face was well-coloured, her
mouth, firm and rather wide, her nose well-shaped, her hair dark. She
spoke in a decided voice, and did not mince her words. It was to her
that her husband, Sir James, owed his reactionary principles on the
subject of woman.

Round the corner at the end of the table the Hon. Geoffrey Winlow was
telling his hostess of the Balkan Provinces, from a tour in which he
had just returned. His face, of the Norman type, with regular, handsome
features, had a leisurely and capable expression. His manner was easy
and pleasant; only at times it became apparent that his ideas were in
perfect order, so that he would naturally not care to be corrected. His
father, Lord Montrossor, whose seat was at Coldingham six miles away,
would ultimately yield to him his place in the House of Lords.