Mrs Tower saw my perplexity and was shrewd enough to see what was in my mind.
She smiled thinly.
'Look on the left of our host.'
I looked.
Oddly enough the woman who sat there had by her fantastic appearance attracted my attention the moment I was ushered into the crowded drawing-room.
I thought I noticed a gleam of recognition in her eye, but to the best of my belief I had never seen her before.
She was not a young woman, for her hair was iron-grey; it was cut very short and clustered thickly round her well-shaped head in tight curls.
She made no attempt at youth, for she was conspicuous in that gathering by using neither lipstick, rouge nor powder.
Her face, not a particularly handsome one, was red and weather-beaten; but because it owed nothing to artifice had a naturalness that was very pleasing.
It contrasted oddly with the whiteness of her shoulders.
They were really magnificent.
A woman of thirty might have been proud of them.
But her dress was extraordinary.
I had not seen often anything more audacious.
It was cut very low, with short skirts, which were then the fashion, in black and yellow; it had almost the effect of fancy-dress and yet so became her that though on anyone else it would have been outrageous, on her it had the inevitable simplicity of nature.
And to complete the impression of an eccentricity in which there was no pose and of an extravagance in which there was no ostentation she wore, attached by a broad black ribbon, a single eyeglass.
'You're not going to tell me that is your sister-in-law,' I gasped.
'That is Jane Napier,' said Mrs Tower icily.
At that moment she was speaking.
Her host was turned towards her with an anticipatory smile.
A baldish white-haired man, with a sharp, intelligent face, who sat on her left, was leaning forward eagerly, and the couple who sat opposite, ceasing to talk with one another listened intently.
She said her say and they all, with a sudden movement, threw themselves back in their chairs and burst into vociferous laughter.
From the other side of the table a man addressed Mrs Tower: I recognized a famous statesman.
'Your sister-in-law has made another joke, Mrs Tower,' he said.
Mrs Tower smiled.
'She's priceless, isn't she?'
'Let me have a long drink of champagne and then for heaven's sake tell me about it all,' I said.
Well, this is how I gathered it had all happened.
At the beginning of their honeymoon Gilbert took Jane to various dressmakers in Paris and he made no objection to her choosing a number of 'gowns' after her own heart; but he persuaded her to have a 'frock' or two made according to his own design.
It appeared that he had a knack for that kind of work.
He engaged a smart French maid.
Jane had never had such a thing before.
She did her own mending and when she wanted 'doing up' was in the habit of ringing for the housemaid.
The dresses Gilbert had devised were very different from anything she had worn before; but he had been careful not to go too far too quickly, and because it pleased him she persuaded herself, though not without misgivings, to wear them in preference to those she had chosen herself.
Of course she could not wear them with the voluminous petticoats she had been in the habit of using, and these, though it cost her an anxious moment, she discarded.
'Now if you please,' said Mrs Tower, with something very like a sniff of disapproval, 'she wears nothing but thin silk tights.
It's a wonder to me she doesn't catch her death of cold at her age.'
Gilbert and the French maid taught her how to wear her clothes, and, unexpectedly enough, she was very quick at learning.
The French maid was in raptures over Madame's arms and shoulders.
It was a scandal not to show anything so fine.
'Wait a little, Alphonsine,' said Gilbert.
'The next lot of clothes I design for Madame will make the most of her.'
The spectacles of course were dreadful.
No one could look really well in gold-rimmed spectacles.
Gilbert tried some with tortoise-shell rims.
He shook his head.
'They'd look all right on a girl,' he said.
'You're too old to wear spectacles, Jane.'
Suddenly he had an inspiration. 'By George, I've got it.
You must wear an eyeglass.'