pausing once to watch a footman who was busily sorting visiting-cards
into separate packs at a table. She handed him her card, and he
slipped it into a pack marked "I Street."

The drawing-room was thronged with people, and as many of them
surrounded the hostess, while constant new-comers pressed forward to
shake a patient hand, Betty decided to stand apart for a few moments
and look at the crowd. She was in a new world, and as eager and
curious as if she had been shot from Earth to Mars.

Lady Mary was quite as handsome as her portraits: a cold blue and
white and ashen beauty whose carriage and manifest of race were in
curious contrast, Lee had told Betty, to a nervous manner and the loud
voice of one who conceived that social laws had been invented for the
middle class. But there was little vivacity in her manner to-day, and
her voice was not audible across the large room. She looked tired. It
was half-past five o'clock, and doubtless she had been on her feet
since three. But she was smiling graciously upon her visitors, and
gave each a warmth of welcome which betrayed the wife of the ambitious
politician.

"Her mouth is not so selfish as in her photographs," observed the
astute Betty. "I suppose in the depths of her soul she hates this, but
she does it; and if she loves the man, she must think it well worth
while."

She turned her attention to the visitors. There were many women
superbly dressed, in taste as perfect as her own. She never had seen
any of them before, but they had the air of women of importance. The
majority looked frigid and bored, a few dignified and easy of manner.