IT was late and the studio was already well filled when two new-comers were ushered into the room-one a woman still almost young, and still (in a kindly light) beautiful; the other a girl emphatically young, her youth riding triumphant over other qualities which in a few years would become significant. A slight, almost portentous, hush had fallen over the room as they crossed the threshold and shook hands with their host. In a group near the door a young man-it was Laurence Sybert, the first secretary of the American Embassy-broke off in the middle of a sentence with the ejaculation: 'Ah, the Wheat Princess!'