Lady Heyburn, a shallow and vain woman many years younger than her husband, was always surrounded by her own friends.

She hated the country, and more especially what she declared to be the "deadly dullness" of her Perthshire home.

That moment was no exception.

There were half-a-dozen guests staying in the house, but neither Gabrielle nor her father took the slightest interest in any of them.

They had been, of course, invited to the ball at Connachan, and at dinner had expressed surprise when their host's pretty daughter, the belle of the county, had declared that she was not going.
"Oh, Gabrielle is really such a wayward child!" declared her ladyship to old Colonel Burton at her side.