laxing which had drawn her into her odd intimacy
with Garnett, with whom she did not have to be either scrupulously
English or artificially American, since the impression she made on him
was of no more consequence than that which she produced on her footman.
Garnett was perfectly aware that he owed his success to his
insignificance, but the fact affected him only as adding one more
element to his knowledge of Mrs. Newell's character. He was as ready to
sacrifice his personal vanity in such a cause as he had been, at the
outset of their acquaintance, to sacrifice his professional pride to
the opportunity of knowing her.

When he had accepted the position of "London correspondent" (with an
occasional side-glance at Paris) to the New York _Searchlight_, he had
not understood that his work was to include the obligation of
"interviewing"; indeed, had the possibility presented itself in
advance, he would have met it by unpacking his valise and returning to
the drudgery of his assistant-editorship in New York. But when, after
three months in Europe, he received a letter from his chief, suggesting
that he should enliven the Sunday _Searchlight_ by a series of "Talks
with Smart Americans in London" (beginning, say, with Mrs. Sam Newell),
the change of focus already enabled him to view the proposal without
passion. For his life on the edge of the great world-caldron of art,
politics and pleasure--of that high-spiced brew which is nowhere else
so subtly and variously compounded--had bred in him an eager appetite
to taste of the heady mixture. He knew he should never have the full
spoon at his lips, but he recalled the peasant-girl in one of
Browning's plays, who has once eaten polenta cut with a knife which has
carved an ortolan. Might not Mrs. Newell, who had so successfully cut a
way into the dense and succulent mass of English society, serve as the
knife to season his polenta?

He had expected, as the result of the interview, to which she promptly,
almost eagerly, assented, no more than the glimpse of brightly lit
vistas which a waiting messenger may catch through open doors; but
instead he had found himself drawn at once into the inner sanctuary,
not of London society, but of Mrs. Newell's relation to it. She had
been candidly charmed by the idea of the interview: it struck him that
she was conscious of the need of being freshened up. Her appearance was
brilliantly fresh, with the inveterate freshness of the toilet-table;
he