This was Mrs. Elles’s first taste of London society. She had thought of it, dreamed of it, yearned for it for years. Now it had come to her, like a draught of heady champagne, vivifying after the two nights of waking misery and anxiety she had undergone. Only two nights ago, she had stood, a shaking, quaking figure in the dark passage of the inn at Rokeby, hearing the clock tick, and the rustle of the heavy leaf screen against the pane outside the door of her lover’s room, whence no sound came--no voice of pardon. Here in the successful novelist’s pretty electric-lighted rooms all was gaiety, easy, social merriment, facile smiles and light-hearted repartee. She was made for this. She held her own. She smiled and retorted with all but the last touch of up-to-dateness, and her hostess put her forward, and gave her every opportunity of shining. Mrs. Elles thoroughly appreciated her generosity, and, woman-like, was far more deeply touched by Egidia’s kindness in this instance, than by her greater charity in so ardently espousing her cause in the matter of the divorce. She for a time forgot the Damocles sword that hung over her head. In a few months, perhaps, nobody would care to speak to her; now they were at any rate glad enough to do so. She went in to dinner with Mr. St. Jerome, the popular novelist, and he seemed to think her interesting. She had intended at first to try to sink her disqualification of country cousin, but by the time they had got to the first entrée, decided otherwise, since the assumption of mundaneity prevented her asking questions, and she did so want to know so many things. She would make conversational capital out of it instead. “Is every one here a celebrity?” she asked. “So much so, that they are all trying to hide it,” St. Jerome answered. “Did you ever see a more modest looking set of people, calmly eating their fish, and saving their good things for their books?” “Are you doing that too?” she asked with the sweetest of smiles. She knew he wrote novels. She allowed a little time to elapse before she removed the sting, then--“Because, if so, you succeed very badly. You have said several things I shall feel obliged to use again in the provinces. But--forgive me, I am like Pope’s definition of a mark of interrogation---- ” “You want to know who that is?” he said briskly, indicating a dark, bearded man, with impressive eyes, who sat next Egidia. “How quick you are!” “Not at all. Everybody wants to know who Dr. André is!” She felt snubbed; he went on.