To be told, by the father of whose dear existence one had only learned within the hour, that one was the child of a notorious thief and an adventuress ...

It needed more than common fortitude to face renewed reminder of that shame.

Oddly enough, it seemed to help a bit, somehow to lend her courage and assurance, to pass the man Nogam in the hall and acknowledge his bow and smile.  Sofia wondered vaguely what it was that made his smile seem so kind; it was entirely respectful, there was nothing more in it that she could fix on; and yet ...

She was able to offer Victor a composed, almost a happy countenance, and to return cheerful assurances to punctilious enquiries after her well-being and her comfort overnight.  To the real affection in which he held her, the warmth of his embrace, and the lingering pressure of his lips gave convincing testimony; and in time, no doubt, as she grew to know him better, her response would become more spontaneous and true.  Indeed, she insisted, it must; she would school herself, if need be, to remember that this strange man was the author of her being, the natural object of her affections—­deserving all her love if only because of that nobility which had enabled him to renounce those evil ways of years long dead.

But to-day—­and this, of course, she couldn’t understand—­a slight but invincible shiver, perceptible to herself alone, attended her submission to paternal caresses; and the eyes were too dispassionate with which she saw Prince Victor.  Still, they found little to which fair exception might be taken.  If Life had thus far been callously frank with Sofia as to its broader aspects, the niceties of its technique remained measurably a mystery, she was insufficiently instructed to perceive that Victor’s morning coat (for example) had been cut a shade too cleverly, or that the ensemble of his raiment was a trace ornate; and where a mind more mondain would have marked ponderable constraint in his manner, she saw only dignity and reserve.  But for all that she recognized intuitively a lack of something in the man, the sum of this second impression of him was formless disappointment, she felt somehow cheated, disheartened, chilled.

That she was able at all to dissemble this sense of dashed expectations was thanks in the main to a third party, a stranger whose presence she overlooked on entering, when Prince Victor met her near the door, while the other remained aside, half hidden in the recess of a window.

Directly, however, that Victor half turned away, saying “I have found a friend for you, my dear,” Sofia, following his glance, discovered a woman whose every detail of dress and deportment was unmistakably of the fashionable world and whose face carried souvenirs of loveliness as unmistakable.

Smiling and offering her hands, she approached, while Victor’s voice of heavy modulations uttered formally: 

“Sybil, permit me to present my daughter.  Sofia, Mrs. Waring has graciously offered to sponsor your introduction to Society, to guide and instruct you and be in every way your mentor.”