For a rising young politician of pronounced imperialist views, like Usk, Mrs Sadleir’s house was emphatically one to visit. Her husband, who had held an important permanent post in the Foreign Office, had gathered around him in his leisure hours men of all nations with whom he came in contact in the course of his duties, and after his death his widow found herself unable to dispense with the excitement of the brilliant society to which she had grown accustomed. It was a commonplace among her friends that, in most cases, she could, if she liked, announce forthcoming diplomatic changes before the ministers who arranged them, and some said that a good deal of the political history of Europe had been made at different times in her drawing-room. Yet she was not an intriguer, far less a conspirator, but simply a cultivated, tactful woman, with a talent for bringing together at the right time the right people, or, at any rate, the people who it was desirable should meet one another. She came forward now to greet Lord Usk, as he mounted her staircase, and made him a sign to wait until she had got rid of a voluble Italian secretary of embassy, who was impressing some fact upon her with a good deal of gesticulation. Mrs Sadleir’s gracious and striking personality was reflected in her dress. Her gown was black, made in a severe yet fanciful style that was unlike any one else’s. On her head she wore an arrangement of black lace, which was no more to be called a cap than a veil, and was the despair of her maid, but which, taken in conjunction with her bright dark eyes and the silver hair rolled smoothly back from her forehead, gave her the look of a great lady of the old _régime_. Having disposed of the Italian, she turned to Usk. “I am very glad indeed that you have come in to-night, Usk, for I have some one here whom you will enjoy meeting. I was almost inclined to send a message to you at the House by Dr Egerton, who was going on there; but I thought you might come, and therefore I waited. It is M. Drakovics to whom I want to introduce you.” “What! the Kossuth of the Balkans--the Thracian premier?” asked Usk, much interested. “Yes, the great history-maker of to-day. It is a liberal education (pray don’t think I intend a pun) to hear him talk. Come and I will take you to him.” She did not lead him into the crowded drawing-room, full of light and laughter, but into a smaller room near at hand, where a solitary gentleman in evening dress was dimly visible by the rays of a Moorish lamp hanging in a window-recess. He was a small shrunken man, with a large bald head and a massive brow; and as Usk’s eyes grew accustomed to the dim light, he saw in the bronzed face and heavy grey moustache the hint of a likeness to another and a more successful statesman than the Hungarian patriot, a likeness which was, moreover, not altogether distasteful to M. Drakovics himself.