It was her husband's will to ask these raw, artistic youths to dinner, and she had to put up with it; but really the difficulty of knowing whom to send them in with was enormous.
'I am glad to make your acquaintance,' she said, mechanically, to Fenwick, as he stood awkwardly beside her, while her eyes searched the door for a Cabinet Minister and his wife who were the latest guests.
'Thank you; I too am pleased to make yours,' said Fenwick, nervously pulling at his gloves, and furious with his own _malaise_.
Lady Findon's eyebrows lifted in amusement.

She threw him another glance.
Good-looking!--but really Findon should wait till they were a little _decrotte_.
'I hear your picture is charming,' she said, distractedly; and then, suddenly perceiving the expected figures, she swept forward to receive them.
'Very sorry, my dear fellow, we have no lady for you; but you will be next my daughter, Madame de Pastourelles,' said Lord Findon, a few minutes later, in his ear, passing him with a nod and a smile.

His gay, half-fatherly ways with these rising talents were well known.
They made part of his fame with his contemporaries; a picturesque element in his dinner-parties which the world appreciated.
Fenwick found his way rather sulkily to the dining-room.

It annoyed him that Cuningham had a lady and he had none.

His companion on the road downstairs was the private secretary, who tried good-naturedly to point out the family portraits on the staircase wall.