erefore, why meet in somebody else's most
probably hideous room, and eat impossible dishes and talk to impossible
people? Her own chef had been famous even in Paris, and every evening,
according to the custom of the house, an extravagant _menu_ was
prepared, at which, when she was alone, she hardly glanced.

Mrs. Ogilvie discussed all things in heaven or earth with a baffling
lightness, turned philosophy into a witty jest and made a sort of slang
of classical terminology. Amongst a clever set in London she reigned
supreme when she chose; but a false note or a pose offended her
immediately, and the poseur or the insincere person would generally
receive one of her exquisite snubs which cut like acid into tender
skins. The pretentiousness of the so-called cultured set was a
vulgarism in the eyes of this woman who could be rude with the air of a
princess, and could give a snub as some people offer a compliment.
Inferior persons sometimes wondered how she had a friend left. To be
popular, they argued, one had to be civil, whereas Mrs. Ogilvie was
often daringly disagreeable. There was indeed something almost fine in
her splendid disdain of the civility of the so-called popular person.
She could wound; but she did it with the grace of a duellist of old
days, who wiped his rapier with a handkerchief of cambric and lace when
he had killed his opponent, and would probably expect a man to die as
he himself would die, with a jest on his lips and a light laugh at the
flowing blood. Mrs. Ogilvie slew exquisitely, and she never hated her
opponent. She smiled at enthusiasm and thought it bizarre and rather
delightful; but towards vulgarity, especially in its pompous form, she
presented her poniard-point sharply tipped and deadly. 'Why should
people take themselves seriously?' she would say, with a shrug of her
shoulders. 'Surely, we are a common enough species!' And then the
green-grey eyes would narrow themselves in their shortsighted way, and
Mrs. Ogilvie's voice, charmingly refined and well-bred, would with a
few words lightly prick the falsely sentimental and self-inflated
wind-bag of oratory that had presented its unprotected surface to her
shaft.

Towards religion her attitude was the well-bred one. She took off her
hat to it, as a gentleman removes his hat in church whatever his creed
may be. Her own beliefs were as daring and as nearly as possible
uninfluenced by outward opinion or by the accepted systems as it is