Livia. She was still in the bloom of youth, at most seven-and-twenty,
but she had all the calm assurance of middle-age. No dowager, hardened
by the varied experiences of a quarter of a century in the great world,
could have faced society with more perfect coolness and self-possession.
She was beautiful, and she let the world see that she was conscious of
her beauty, and the power that went along with it. She was clever, and
she used her cleverness with unfailing tact and unscrupulous audacity.
She had won her place in the world as an acknowledged beauty, and one of
the leaders of fashion. Two years ago she had been the glory and delight
of Anglo-Indian society in the city of Madras, ruling that remote and
limited kingdom with a despotic power. Then all of a sudden she was
ordered, or she ordered her physician to order her, an immediate
departure from that perilous climate, and she came back to England with
her three-year-old son, two Ayahs, and four European servants, leaving
her husband, Lord Maulevrier, Governor of the Madras Presidency, to
finish the term of his service in an enforced widowhood.

She returned to be the delight of London society. She threw open the
family mansion in Curzon Street to the very best people, but to those
only. She went out a great deal, but she was never seen at a second-rate
party. She had not a single doubtful acquaintance upon her visiting
list. She spent half of every year at the family seat in Scotland, was a
miracle of goodness to the poor of her parish, and taught her boy his
alphabet.

Lord Denyer came forward while his wife and Lady Maulevrier were shaking
hands, and greeted her with more than his usual cordiality. Colonel
Madison watched for the privilege of a recognising nod from the
divinity. Sir Jasper Paulet, a legal luminary of the first brilliancy,
likely to be employed for the Crown if there should be an inquiry into