That evening Mrs. Brereton was dining at Lady Ardingly's, the woman whom she admired and respected more than any one in the world. She had been nobody quite knew who, but, anyhow, Russian and as poor as a church mouse; but she had got, and nobody quite knew how, a position which was in its way unique. She had married Lord Ardingly while quite a girl in the teeth of strenuous opposition, fighting her battle quite unaided, and, instead of his having to live her down, it had soon become quite clear that it would be his part to toil, faint yet pursuing, in her wake. All her life success had attended her, she always knew what she wanted and always got it, and whoever else rose and shone and passed, Lady Ardingly continued to burn with unbated luminance. To-day, so Mildred Brereton thought, Marie Alston was the star, but she quite realized that this particular star, like those of the music-halls, might some day set; but Lady Ardingly remained swung high in the social heavens, a permanent centrepiece. Marie was the fashion, it is true, but Lady Ardingly was much more than the fashion; that word was far too superficial to describe her. She had been, no doubt, once of great personal beauty, but clearly it was not that which gave her the power she possessed, for it had passed years ago, and she was now something over sixty, with splashes of rouge dashed in an impressionist manner on to her face, not from any motive of vanity, but simply from long force of habit; a wig, no more to be mistaken for natural growth than a top-hat, was perched negligently on one side of her head, and to balance it, in the evening, a tiara perched on the other. Her neck was covered with jewels; her hands, which were somewhat lean and knuckly, were crammed with rings; and she dressed superbly. But all these things, like the rouge, were the result of habit; she had been accustomed to that sort of thing, and continued it, and certainly he would have been a bold man who tried to reason with her or alter her. Her husband, for instance, never attempted it. Finally, she was inordinately fond of gossip, card-playing, and other people's business, and was eminently good-natured provided that path did not cross her own. But she had so many private side-paths down which she was liable to wander, that one never knew for certain where she would come out next, or how she would act in any given set of circumstances. But as long as doing a kindness to another did not interfere with what she desired herself, she was always ready, even at the cost of trouble and personal exertion, to help her friends if they approached her in the proper spirit, which implied a good deal of abasement. She had been in her time a very considerable political intriguer, and, following her invariable rule of always getting whatever she wanted, she had built up her husband into the edifice of the Conservative Government. But the game--for it had never been more to her than that--had now ceased to