And with a rapid and comprehensive glance he made an inventory of her charms. Sabaroff had as keen a scent for game as the huntsman's dog, and he could recognise a coquette a mile off. He knew just how much he could say to certain women without running the risk of offending them. Lady Margaret flirted her fan as every woman should do in such a circumstance, made a profound curtsey to the General, and from behind her fan shot at him, out of the corners of her eyes, the invitation of the flirt, which seems to promise so much, but which means so little. I think it was Georges Sand who wittily said, "The flirt is a woman who signs a bill with the firm intention of not honouring her signature." In the centre of a neighbouring group, Sir Benjamin Pond was holding forth on commerce, politics, the theatre, and fine arts--all subjects were within the domain of this pompous personage with the white waistcoat. "Yes, the Ministry ought to be impeached for having allowed such an acquisition to go out of the country. We are the richest and most enterprising people in the world, but the most stupid, the most obstinate, and the slowest to adopt new ideas"--he looked round him at the rooms. "What a house he has, this lucky dog! Six months ago he was living in a little shanty in St. John's Wood. What luxury! Shells pay better than painting. Why, there is Mr. Lorimer; my congratulations; your play is a masterpiece, you have taken London by storm! Oh, but for taking the world by storm, give me the invention of our friend Grantham. That's a _bon mot_, and not a bad one either." "What a donkey!" thought Lorimer. "His shell fell on us like a bomb, eh? Ah, ha, ha!" and as he laughed his loud guffaw, his white waistcoat kept time. Lorimer slipped away and returned to Dora's side. Pond rejoined him almost immediately. "Mrs. Grantham, Lady Pond has the greatest desire to see the famous picture." "What famous picture?" asked Dora. "Why, the one that all London is talking of--the one I so much wanted to buy six months ago." "You remember," said Lorimer, "thirty-six by fifty" ... "Oh, of course. You can see it in the adjoining room, at the end of the small drawing-room." "Thanks!" And he set off in the direction indicated. "Always that picture," said Dora to Lorimer; "my head is dazed; why do we not go to supper and put an end to this? Holloa! What is that frantic applause for?... Listen, they are going on with it, they are encoring something. What can it be all about?" Lorimer pressed through the crowd a little, and then came back to Dora. "You may count upon something spicy," said he; "it is Mimi Latouche, once the darling of Paris, now all the rage in London. Did you ask her here to-night?" "I asked her--that is to say, the impresario who has charge of my programme sent her."