Page:Herbert Jenkins - Patricia Brent Spinster.djvu/120

 of their elder brother, the heir, Viscount Bowen, who would succeed to the title as the eighth Marquess of Meyﬁeld. Bowen was five years older than his sister, who had just passed her twenty-third birthday and, as a frail sensitive child, she had instinctively looked to him for protection against her elder brother.

Their comradeship was that of mutual understanding. For one to say to the other, "Don't fail me," meant that any engagement, however pressing, would be put off. There was a tacit acknowledgment that their comradeship stood before all else. Each to the other was unique. Thus when Bowen sent the message to Lady Tanagra through Peel asking her not to fail him, he knew that she would keep the appointment. He knew equally well that it would involve her in the breaking of some other engagement, for there were few girls in London so popular as Lady Tanagra Bowen.

Whenever there was an important social function, Lady Tanagra Bowen was sure to be there, and it was equally certain that the photographers of the illustrated and society papers would so manœuvre that she came into the particular group, or groups, they were taking.

The seventh Marquess of Meyfield was an enthusiastic collector of Tanagra figurines and, overruling his lady’s protestations, he had determined to call his first and only daughter Tanagra. Lady Meyfield had begged for a second name; but the