The young officer standing in the gateway, as if hesitating whether to enter or not, clicked his tongue.

The first thing that caught Helen’s eye as she came downstairs was a carriage at the door, filled with skirts and feathers nodding on the tops of hats. She had only time to gain the drawing–room before two names were oddly mispronounced by the Spanish maid, and Mrs. Thornbury came in slightly in advance of Mrs. Wilfrid Flushing.