Through the closed door Nan could hear Roger’s voice.  He was evidently engaged in cheerful conversation with someone in the hall outside—­a woman, from the light trill of laughter which came in response to some remark of his—­and a moment later the door opened and Nan could see his head and shoulders towering above those of the woman who preceded him into the room.

“Isobel, my dear!”

For the first time since the beginning of their interview Nan heard Lady Gertrude’s voice soften to a more human note.  Turning to Nan she continued, still in the same affectionate tone of voice: 

“This is my niece, Isobel Carson—­though she is really more like a daughter to me.”

“So it looks as though we shall be sisters!” put in the newcomer lightly.  “Really”—­with a quick, bird-like glance, that included everyone in the room—­“our relationships will get rather mixed up, won’t they?”

She held out a rather claw-like little hand for Nan to shake, and the unexpectedly tense and energetic grip of it was somewhat surprising.  She was a small, dark creature with bright, restless brown eyes set in a somewhat sallow face—­its sallowness the result of several husband-hunting years spent in India, where her father had held a post in the Indian Civil Service.

It was one of those rather incomprehensible happenings of life that she had been left still blooming on her virgin stem.  It would have been difficult to guess her exact age.  She owned to thirty-four, and a decade ago, when she had first joined her father in India, she must have possessed a certain elfish prettiness of her own.  Now, thanks to those years spent under a tropical sun, she was a trifle faded and passee-looking.

Following upon the advent of Roger and his cousin the conversation became general for a few minutes, then Lady Gertrude drew her son towards a French window opening on to the garden—­a garden immaculately laid out, with flower-beds breaking the expanse of lawn at just the correct intervals—­and eventually she and Roger passed out of the room to discuss with immense seriousness the shortcomings of the gardener as exemplified in the shape of one of the geranium beds.

“You won’t like it here!” observed Isobel Carson rather bluntly, when the two girls were left alone.

“Why shouldn’t I?” Nan smiled.

“Because you won’t fit in at all.  You’ll be like a rocket battering about in the middle of a set piece.”

Isobel lacked neither brains nor observation, though she had been wise enough to conceal both these facts from Lady Gertrude.

“Don’t you like it here, then?”

Isobel regarded her thoughtfully, as though speculating how far she dared be frank.

“Of course I like it.  But it’s Hobson’s choice with me,” she replied rather grimly.  “When my father died I was left with very little money and no special training.  Result—­I spent a hateful year as nursery governess to a couple of detestable brats.  Then Aunt Gertrude invited me here on a visit—­and that visit has prolonged itself up till the present moment.  She finds me very useful, you know,” she added cynically.