ressed to perfection. In character she was the typical
society woman: always charming, generally insincere. She went to
Kensington for her religion and to Mayfair for her morals; accepted her
literature from Mudie's and her art from the Grosvenor Gallery; and could
and would gabble philanthropy, philosophy, and politics with equal
fluency at every five-o'clock tea-table she visited. Her ideas could
always be guaranteed as the very latest, and her opinion as that of the
person to whom she was talking. Asked by a famous novelist one
afternoon, at the Pioneer Club, to give him some idea of her, little Mrs.
Bund, the painter's wife, had remained for a few moments with her pretty
lips pursed, and had then said:

"She is a woman to whom life could bring nothing more fully satisfying
than a dinner invitation from a duchess, and whose nature would be
incapable of sustaining deeper suffering than that caused by an
ill-fitting costume."

At the time I should have said the epigram was as true as it was cruel,
but I suppose we none of us quite know each other.

I congratulated "Blase Billy," or to drop his Club nickname and give him
the full benefit of his social label, "The Hon. William Cecil Wychwood
Stanley Drayton," on the occasion of our next meeting, which happened
upon the steps of the Savoy Restaurant, and I thought--unless a quiver of
the electric light deceived me--that he blushed.

"Charming girl," I said. "You're a lucky dog, Billy."

It was the phrase that custom demands upon such occasions, and it came of
its own accord to my tongue without costing me the trouble of
composition, but he seized upon it as though it had been a gem of
friendly sincerity.

"You will like her even more when you know her better," he said. "She is
so different from the usual woman that one meets. Come and see her to-
morrow afternoon, she will be so pleased. Go about four, I will tell her
to expect you."

I rang the bell at ten minutes past five. Billy was there. She greeted
me with a little tremor of embarrassment, which sat oddly upon her, but
which was not altogether unpleasing. She said it was kind of me to come
so early. I stayed for about half an hour, but conversation flagged, and
some of my cleverest remarks attracted no attention whatever.

When I rose to take my leave, Billy said that he must be off too, and
that he would accompany me. Had they been ordinary lovers, I should have
been careful to give them an op