"Now what is your ideal society, Miss Lorimer?" "A society not of class, caste, or family--but of picked individuals." "I think we tend more and more towards such a society, at least in London," said Lord Watergate; then added, "You are a democrat, Miss Lorimer." "And you are an optimist, Lord Watergate." "Oh, I'm quite unformulated. But let us leave off this mutual recrimination for the present; and perhaps you can tell me who is the lady talking to Sidney Darrell." Lord Watergate's attention had been suddenly caught by Phyllis; Gertrude noted that he was looking at her with all his eyes. "That is one of my sisters," she said. He turned towards her with a start; there was a note of constraint in his tones as he said-- "She is very beautiful." What was there in his voice, in his face, that suddenly brought before Gertrude's vision the image of the dead woman, her golden hair, and haggard beauty? Phyllis, on her part, had been aware of the brief but intense gaze which the grey eyes had cast upon her from the other side of the room. "Who is that person talking to my sister?" she said. Darrell looked across coldly, and answered: "Oh, that's Lord Watergate, the great physiologist." "I have never met a lord before." "And, after all, this isn't much of a lord, because the peer is quite swallowed up in the man of science." Oakley came up, entreating Darrell to sing. "But isn't it quite irregular, to-day?" "Oh, we don't pretend to be fashionable. This isn't 'Show Sunday,' pure and simple, but just a pretext for seeing one's friends." "By the by," said the artist, as Oakley went off to open the little piano, "is it any good my sending the sketches this week? though it's horribly bad form to talk shop." "You must ask my sister about those things." "Oh, your sister is far and away too clever for me." "Gertrude is clever, but not in the way you mean." "Nevertheless, I am horribly afraid of her." Darrell went over to the piano and sang a little French song, with perfect art, in his rich baritone. Gertrude watched him, as he sat there playing his own accompaniment, and a vague terror stole over her of this irreproachable-looking person, who did everything so well; whose quiet presence was redolent of an immeasurable, because an unknown strength; and who, she felt (indignantly remembering the cold irony of his glance) could never, under any circumstances, be made to appear ridiculous. At the end of the song, Phyllis came over to Gertrude. "Aren't we going, Gerty?" she said; "It is quite unfashionable to 'make a night of it' like this. One is just supposed to look round and sail off to half-a-dozen other studios." Lord Watergate, who stood near, caught the half-whispered words, and smiled, as one smiles at the nonsense of a pretty child. Gertrude saw the expression of his face as she answered-- "Yes, it is time we went. Tell Lucy; there she is with Mr. Jermyn."