Montagu Vane was of a small stature, but admirably proportioned; his hair, now grey, was very fine, and curled closely to his scalp; his walk had a spring which added suppleness to his limbs. He was a boudoir Apollo who had grown weary of Olympic games, and of gods and goddesses, and who had one day daintily tripped down from his pedestal to join the crowd of modern pigmies. When the storm broke over London, Vane was close on tearing his curly hair, as he realised that something had to be done to save his position. For was he not arbiter in all matters of art? Still, he was not the sort of man to be baffled by a few buckets of water, and he set to work redecorating his house. Suddenly he bethought himself of a struggling Italian, who, the previous year, had come to see whether London Society would take up the art of fresco, of which the secrets had been handed down to him by ancestors skilled in that primitive art. Montagu always made a point of helping young artists up the social ladder; he gave them a lift up the first step, advised them for the second rung, and invariably said by-by to them until they met at the top, which they rarely ever did. From that day Paolo Cinecchi worked at Vane’s walls, and the fantastic arabesques and subjects he designed on black-painted backgrounds turned out to be a suitable set-off for groups of Apollos and Venuses. The Upper Ten at once took to this mode of decoration, and Cinecchi’s name was in every mouth. Montagu was past master in worldly _savoir-faire_, and as an Amphytrion surpassed every London hostess by his ability in gathering round his table the idlers and toilers of smart Society and Bohemianism. He was no philosopher, and lived artificially, harbouring a profound horror of intensity; it made him blink. Greek in his tastes, he was thoroughly British in his selfish isolation. He saw many, mixed in the social and artistic world, but he merely skimmed people. He was busy with trifles, and utterly devoid of any sense of humour. His success in Society had principally lain in his many-sided mediocrity; for mediocrity is always pleasing, but when it is varied, it is delightful. His views on politics, his impressions on social problems reminded one of an article out of the _Court Circular Journal_; whilst his experiences of life had been taught him in the shaded corners of a Duchess’s drawing-room, or in the smoking-room of a smart Continental hotel.