he
clearness of her own judgment. Eccentricity was in her eyes originality;
a wholesale contradiction of established facts was a new view. She had
not the horrid perception of difference between the real and the
imitation which spoils the lives of many. She was equally delighted with
both, and remained in blissful ignorance of the fact that her "deep"
conversation was felt to be exhaustingly superficial if by chance she
came across the real artist or thinker instead of his counterfeit.

Consequently to her house came the _rate_ in all his most virulent
developments; the "new woman" with stupendous lopsided opinions on
difficult Old Testament subjects; the "lady authoress" with a mission to
show up the vices of a society which she knew only by hearsay. Hither
came, unwittingly, simple-minded Church dignitaries, who, Sybell hoped,
might influence for his good the young agnostic poet who had written a
sonnet on her muff-chain, a very daring sonnet, which Doll, who did not
care for poetry, had not been shown. Hither, by mistake, thinking it was
an ordinary dinner-party, came Hugh, whom Sybell said she had
discovered, and who was not aware that he was in need of discovery. And
hither also on this particular evening came Rachel West, whom Sybell had
pronounced to be very intelligent a few days before, and who was
serenely unconscious that she was present on her probation, and that if
she did not say something striking she would never be asked again.

Doll Loftus, Sybell's husband, was standing by Rachel when Hugh came in.
He felt drawn towards her because she was not "clever," as far as her
appearance went. At any rate, she had not the touzled, ill-groomed hair
which he had learned to associate with female genius.

"This sort of thing is beyond me," he said, mournfully, to Rachel, his
eyes travelling over the assembly gathered round his wife, whose remarks
were calling forth admiring laughter. "I don't understand half they
say, and when I do I sometimes wish I didn't. But I suppose--"
tentatively--"You go in for all this sort of thing?"

"I?" said Rachel, astonished. "I don't go in for anything. But what sort
of thing do you mean?"

"There is Scarlett," said Doll, with relief, who hated definitions, and
felt the conversation was on the slippery verge of becoming deep. "Do
you know him? Looks as if he'd seen a ghost, doesn't he?"

Rachel's interest, never a heavy sleeper, was instantly awakened as she
saw Sybell piloting