And I noticed then that her head was very well placed on her shoulders.
'Has Marion told you my news?' she said, turning to me with that really charming smile of hers as if we were already old friends.
'I must congratulate you,' I said.
'Wait to do that till you've seen my young man.'
'I think it's too sweet to hear you talk of your young man,' smiled Mrs Tower.
Mrs Fowler's eyes certainly twinkled behind her preposterous spectacles.
'Don't expect anyone too old.
You wouldn't like me to marry a decrepit old gentleman with one foot in the grave, would you?'
This was the only warning she gave us.
Indeed there was no time for any further discussion, for the butler flung open the door and in a loud voice announced:
'Mr Gilbert Napier.'
There entered a youth in a very well-cut dinner jacket.
He was slight, not very tall, with fair hair in which there was a hint of a natural wave, clean-shaven and blue-eyed.
He was not particularly good-looking, but he had a pleasant, amiable face.
In ten years he would probably be wizened and sallow; but now, in extreme youth, he was fresh and clean and blooming.
For he was certainly not more than twenty-four.
My first thought was that this was the son of Jane Fowler's fiance (I had not known he was a widower) come to say that his father was prevented from dining by a sudden attack of gout.
But his eyes fell immediately on Mrs Fowler, his face lit up, and he went towards her with both hands outstretched.
Mrs Fowler gave him hers, a demure smile on her lips, and turned to her sister-in-law.
'This is my young man, Marion,' she said.
He held out his hand.
'I hope you'll like me, Mrs Tower,' he said.
'Jane tells me you're the only relation she has in the world.'
Mrs Tower's face was wonderful to behold.
I saw then to admiration how bravely good breeding and social usage could combat the instincts of the natural woman.
For the astonishment and then the dismay that for an instant she could not conceal were quickly driven away, and her face assumed an expression of affable welcome.
But she was evidently at a loss for words.
It was not unnatural if Gilbert felt a certain embarrassment and I was too busy preventing myself from laughing to think of anything to say.
Mrs Fowler alone kept perfectly calm.
'I know you'll like him, Marion.
There's no one enjoys good food more than he does.'
She turned to the young man. 'Marion's dinners are famous.'
'I know,' he beamed.
Mrs Tower made some quick rejoinder and we went downstairs.
I shall not soon forget the exquisite comedy of that meal.
Mrs Tower could not make up her mind whether the pair of them were playing a practical joke on her or whether Jane by wilfully concealing her fiance's age had hoped to make her look foolish.
But then Jane never jested and she was incapable of doing a malicious thing.
Mrs Tower was amazed, exasperated and perplexed.
But she had recovered her self-control, and for nothing would she have forgotten that she was a perfect hostess whose duty it was to make her party go.
She talked vivaciously; but I wondered if Gilbert Napier saw how hard and vindictive was the expression of her eyes behind the mask of friendliness that she turned to him.
She was measuring him.
She was seeking to delve into the secret of his soul.
I could see that she was in a passion, for under her rouge her cheeks glowed with an angry red.
'You've got a very high colour, Marion,' said Jane, looking at her amiably through her great round spectacles.
'I dressed in a hurry.
I daresay I put on too much rouge.'
'Oh, is it rouge?
I thought it was natural.
Otherwise I shouldn't have mentioned it.'
She gave Gilbert a shy little smile.