where the most experienced and the most wary of two capitals had not escaped.  He did not agree that she was beautiful, but her complexion enthralled him.  He had never seen such a complexion; nobody had ever seen such a complexion.  It combined extremely marvellous whites and extremely marvellous pinks, and the skin had the exquisite, incredible softness of a baby’s.  Next he was struck by her candid, ingenuous, inquiring gaze, and by her thin voice with the slight occasional lisp.  The splendid magnificence of her frock and jewels came into play later.  Lastly her demeanour imposed itself.  That simple gaze showed not the slightest diffidence, scarcely even modesty; it was more brazen than effrontery.  She preceded the other three into the restaurant, where electricity had finally conquered the expiring daylight, and her entry obviously excited the whole room; yet, guided by two waving and fawning waiters, and a hundred glances upon her, she walked to the appointed table without a trace of self-consciousness—­as naturally as a policeman down a street.  When she sat down, George on her right, Lucas on her left, and the tall, virginal Laurencine Ingram opposite, she was the principal person in the restaurant.  George had already passed from disappointment to an impressed nervousness.  The inquisitive diners might all have been quizzing him instead of Irene Wheeler.  He envied Lucas, who was talking freely to both Miss Wheeler and Laurencine about what he had ordered for dinner.  That morning over a drawing-board and an architectural problem, Lucas had been humble enough to George, and George by natural right had laid the law down to Lucas; but now Lucas, who—­George was obliged to admit—­never said anything brilliant or original, was outshining him....  It was unquestionable that in getting Irene Wheeler to dinner, Lucas, by some mysterious talent which he possessed, had performed a feat greater even than George had at first imagined—­a prodigious feat.

George waited for Irene Wheeler to begin to talk.  She did not begin to talk.  She was content with the grand function of existing.  Lucas showed her the portrait in the illustrated paper, which he had kept.  She said that it was comparatively an old one, and had been taken at the Durbar in January.  “Were you at the Durbar?” asked the simpleton George.  Irene Wheeler looked at him.  “Yes.  I was in the Viceroy’s house-party,” she answered mildly.  And then she said to Lucas that she had sat three times to photographers that week—­“They won’t leave me alone”—­but that the proofs were none of them satisfactory.  At this Laurencine Ingram boldly and blushingly protested, maintaining that one of them was lovely.  George was attracted to Laurencine, in whom he saw no likeness to her sister Lois.  She could not long have left school.  She was the product finished for the world; she had been taught everything that was considered desirable—­even to the art of talking easily and yet virginally on all subjects at table; and she