The soothing charm of a long and protracted toilette enlivened by Justine’s somewhat intimate account of the one Russian whom she knew thoroughly, beguiled the time and restored Minna to good humour. When she left Justine’s hands, adorned in the most fascinating of Paris dresses, with her diamond star in her dark hair, and looked at herself in the pier-glass, she was almost happy. She was young, and to most eyes, especially her own, captivatingly beautiful. The ravages that the past ordeal had made in her beauty had been repaired by time. Her lips were as ripely pouting, her dark eyes as slumberous, her lazy lids as sensuous, as when she had first deliberately woven their glamour around Hugh, long, long ago. Furthermore, she had ripened into maturer womanhood. “Mademoiselle is ravishing,” said Justine. Minna sighed. “And to think that it’s all going to be wasted to-night--positively wasted.” “Mademoiselle will command the admiration of the whole house.” Minna laughed contemptuously. What would be the gratification of that? “It would please me enormously if I were in the place of Mademoiselle,” said Justine. A little later Minna descended with her guest to the great dining-room. Mrs. Delamere was a faded, aristocratic looking woman, with an aquiline nose and a perfect taste in dress. She looked at her charge critically, noticed her unabashed and somewhat inviting acceptance of admiring glances, and imperceptibly shrugged her shoulders. Rather than linger in the Bloomsbury boarding-house, where for the past year she had been hiding her fallen fortunes, she would have undertaken to chaperon the Unmentionable Person of Babylon herself. Meanwhile she intended to enjoy her dinner. The crowded room, the buzz of conversation, and the expensive wines completed Minna’s sense of content. “I am glad that you prefer champagne _extra sec_,” said Mrs. Delamere, after the first appreciative sip. “So many women go for Veuve Cliquot, when they can.” “Yes, and make men afraid to dine with them,” said Minna. “I felt sure that your taste and mine would coincide. Yet I had to educate myself up to it.” “The education will not be thrown away,” said Mrs. Delamere. “Men are beasts,” said Minna. “There is scarcely one who can stand against an appeal to his own little pet sensuality. But there is no amusement or excitement in life without men--and so it is worth while studying their sensualities.” Mrs. Delamere assented with a polite gesture. “Do you think I am too cynical for my age?” asked Minna in her languorous voice. “Age is a matter of experience rather than of years.” “Well--too cynical for my experience?” Mrs. Delamere pursed her thin lips in a smile. “Some experience brings cynicism; some again brings truth. It all depends how you are affected.”