, and insinuations that no good was ever
known to spring from a superabundance of feminine charms, which, in the
course of nature, must have an evil tendency, and be productive of
overweening vanity, extravagance, and even immorality.

Still, even evil prognostications cannot quell the fires of curiosity in
the female breast, and every woman in the hotel made her toilette with
special care on this eventful evening, as befitting one who owed it to
her sex to vindicate even the smallest personal attraction in the
presence of rivalry. Colonel Estcourt was not at dinner, so his
presence did not restrain comment and speculation, and the tongues did
quite as much work as the knives and forks.

"I do wonder what sort of gown she'll wear," sighed Mrs Ray Jefferson,
who was attired in a "creation" of the great French man-milliner,
accursed by husbands of fashionable wives, and whose power is only
another note in that ascending scale of absurdity struck by the hands of
fashion.

"Perhaps she won't come down in the drawing-room at all," said Mrs
Masterman spitefully, after listening for some time to the remarks
around her. "Colonel Estcourt did not specify any particular night."

"Oh, I'm sure she'll come," said Mrs Jefferson, whose nature was
specially happy in always assuring her of what she desired. "I've got
an impression that she will--they never fail me. You know I've a
singularly magnetic organisation. A great spiritualist in Boston once
told me I only needed developing to exhibit extraordinary powers. But I
hadn't the time or the patience to go in thoroughly for psychic
development. Besides it's really a very exacting pursuit."

"Exacting rubbish!" exclaimed Mrs Masterman impatiently; "I can't stand
all that bosh about higher powers, and developing magnetism. Of course
there are a set of people who'd believe anything that seemed to give
them a superior organisation; it's only another way of pandering to
human vanity. Spiritualism is perfect rubbish. I've seen and heard
enough of it to know. I once held a _seance_ at my house, just to
convince myself as to its being a trick or not, I was told that the
medium could materialise spirit forms. I, of course, asked some people
to meet him, and we selected a room and put him behind a screen as he
desired, and there we all sat in the dark, like so many fools, for about
half-an-hour.--"

"Well," interposed Mrs Jefferson eagerly, "and did you have any
manifestation