he
way with all women of genius, Catherine's complete change of toilette
indicated a parallel change in her demeanour. Her interesting but
somewhat subdued manner of the previous evening seemed to have vanished.
At the dinner table she dominated the conversation. She displayed an
intimate acquaintance with every capital of Europe and with countless
personages of importance. She exchanged personal reminiscences with Lord
Shervinton, who had once been attached to the Embassy at Rome, and with
Mr. Hannaway Wells, who had been first secretary at Vienna. She spoke
amusingly of Munich, at which place, it appeared, she had first studied
art, but dilated, with all the artist's fervour, on her travellings
in Spain, on the soft yet wonderfully vivid colouring of the southern
cities. She seemed to have escaped altogether from the gravity of which
she had displayed traces on the previous evening. She was no longer the
serious young woman with a purpose. From the chrysalis she had changed
into the butterfly, the brilliant and cosmopolitan young queen of
fashion, ruling easily, not with the arrogance of rank, but with the
actual gifts of charm and wit. Julian himself derived little benefit
from being her neighbour, for the conversation that evening, from first
to last, was general. Even after she had left the room, the atmosphere
which she had created seemed to linger behind her.

"I have never rightly understood Miss Abbeway," the Bishop declared.
"She is a most extraordinarily brilliant young woman."

Lord Shervinton assented.

"To-night you have Catherine Abbeway," he expounded, "as she might have
been but for these queer, alternating crazes of hers--art and socialism.
Her brain was developed a little too early, and she was unfortunately,
almost in her girlhood, thrown in with a little clique of brilliant
young Russians who attained a great influence over her. Most of them are
in Siberia or have disappeared by now. One Anna Katinski--was brought
back from Tobolsk like a royal princess on the first day of the
revolution."

"It is strange," the Earl pronounced didactically, "that a young lady of
Miss Abbeway's birth and gifts should espouse the cause of this Labour
rabble, a party already cursed with too many leaders."

"A woman, when she takes up a cause," Mr. Hannaway Wells observed,
"always seeks either for the picturesque or for something which appeals
to the emotions. So long as she doesn't mix with them, the cause of the