with scorn from a case of real necessity, and
yet spent hundreds of pounds on private theatricals wherein they might
have the chance of displaying themselves in extravagant costumes,--and
there were the "professional" beauties, who, if suddenly deprived of
elegant attire and face-cosmetics, turned out to be no beauties at all,
but very ordinary, unintelligent persons.

"What is the exact meaning of the term, 'professional beauty'?" Thelma
had asked Beau Lovelace on one occasion. "I suppose it is some very poor
beautiful woman, who takes money for showing herself to the public, and
having her portraits sold in the shops? And who is it that pays her?"

Lovelace broke into a laugh. "Upon my word, Lady Errington,--you have
put the matter in a most original but indubitably correct light! Who
pays the 'professional beauty,' you ask? Well, in the case of Mrs.
Smith-Gresham, whom you met the other day, it is a certain Duke who pays
her to the tune of several thousands a year. When he gets tired of her,
or she of him, she'll find somebody else--or perhaps she'll go on the
stage and swell the list of bad amateurs. She'll get on somehow, as long
as she can find a fool ready to settle her dressmaker's bill."

"I do not understand!" said Thelma,--and her fair brows drew together in
that pained grave look that was becoming rather frequent with her now.

And she began to ask fewer questions concerning the various strange
phases of social life that puzzled her,--why, for instance, religious
theorists made so little practical use of their theories,--why there
were cloudy-eyed eccentrics who admired the faulty drawing of Watts, and
the common-place sentence-writing of Walt Whitman,--why members of
Parliament talked so much and did so little,--why new poets, however
nobly inspired, were never accepted unless they had influential friends
on the press,--why painters always married their models or their cooks,
and got heartily ashamed of them afterwards,--and why people all round
said so many things they did not mean. And confused by the general
insincerity, she clung,--poor child!--to Lady Winsleigh, who had the
tact to seem what she was not,--and the cleverness to probe into
Thelma's nature and find out how translucently clear and pure it was--a
perfect well of sweet water, into which one drop of poison, or better
still, several drops, gradually and insidiously instilled, might in time
taint its flavor and darken its brightness. For if a