To be seen at Lady Denyer's, evening parties was the guinea stamp of social distinction; to dine with Lord Denyer was an opening in life, almost as valuable as University honours, and more difficult of attainment.
It was during the quarter of an hour before dinner that a group of persons, mostly personages, congregated round Lord Denyer's chimney-piece, naturally trending towards the social hearth, albeit it was the season for roses and lilies rather than of fires, and the hum of the city was floating in upon the breath of the warm June evening through the five tall windows which opened upon Lord Denyer's balcony.
The ten or twelve persons assembled seemed only a sprinkling in the large lofty room, furnished sparsely with amber satin sofas, a pair of Florentine marble tables, and half an acre or so of looking glass.

Voluminous amber draperies shrouded the windows, and deadened the sound of rolling wheels, and the voices and footfalls of western London.

The drawing rooms of those days were neither artistic nor picturesque--neither Early English nor Low Dutch, nor Renaissance, nor Anglo-Japanese.

A stately commonplace distinguished the reception rooms of the great world.

Upholstery stagnated at a dead level of fluted legs, gilding, plate glass, and amber satin.
Lady Denyer stood a little way in advance of the group on the hearthrug, fanning herself, with her eye on the door, while she listened languidly to the remarks of a youthful diplomatist, a sprig of a lordly tree, upon the last _debut_ at Her Majesty's Theatre.
'My own idea was that she screamed,' said her ladyship.