eard; at first he had half thought
he might have some communication from Mr. Gillat, but as the autumn
went on and he heard nothing, he came to the conclusion that she
really must have arranged something satisfactorily and there was an
end to the whole affair. He settled down to his own concerns and
became very thoroughly absorbed in them, to the exclusion of nearly
everything else. For women he never had much taste, and now, being
busy and preoccupied, he got into the way of scanning them more
critically than ever when he did happen to come across them. Not
comparing them with any ideal standard, but just finding them
uninteresting, whether they were the cultivated, well-bred girls of
the country, or the smart young matrons and wide-awake maidens of the
town.

That autumn the young Rawson-Clew, Captain Polkington's acquaintance,
came into a fortune and took a wife. The latter was, perhaps, on the
whole, a wise proceeding, for, though the wife in question would
undoubtedly help him in the rapid and inevitable spending of the
fortune, she was likely also to enable him to get more for his money
than if he were spending alone. Rawson-Clew was not introduced to this
lady till the winter, then, one evening, he met her at a friend's "at
home."

She was very pretty, small and fair and plump, with childish blue
eyes, and an anything but childish mind behind them. She had dainty
little feet, as well shaped as any he had ever seen, and she was
perfectly dressed, her gown a diaphanous creation of melting colours
and floating softness, which suggested more than it revealed of her
person, like a nymph's drapery. She was the centre of attraction and
talked and laughed a great deal, the latter in little tinkles like a
child of five, the former from the top of her throat with the faintest
lisp and in the strange jargon that was the slang of the moment. She
knew no more of Florentine art or Wagner or Egyptology than Julia
did, and cared even less. She set out to be intelligently ignorant--to
be anything else was called "middle-class" in her set--and she
achieved her end, although she could do some things extremely
well--play bridge, gamble in stocks and shares and anything else, and
arrange lights and colours with the skill of an artist when a suitable
setting for her pretty self was concerned. She had all the charms of
womanly weakness without any old-fashioned and grandmotherly
narrowness; she was quite free and emancipated in mind