Clementina enjoyed a little triumph, the flush of which mounted to her dark face. With the flush, and in the setting she had prepared for herself, she looked radiant. Her late entrance had produced a dramatic effect; the immediate concentration of every one on her work, added to the commonplace of her reputation, had at once established her as the central figure in the room; and she sat as hostess at the foot of the table a symphony in ambergris, gold and black. Woman, in the use of woman’s weapons, has evolved no laws of fence. “One might almost have said she did it on purpose,” murmured the ingenuous Tommy. “Did what?” asked Etta. “Why used the table as a personal decoration. Don’t you see how it all leads up to her—leads up, by Jove, to her eyes and the diamonds in her hair. And, I say, doesn’t it wipe out Mrs. Fontaine?” Tommy was right. Lena Fontaine’s pale colouring, her white face and chestnut hair faded into nothingness against the riot of colour. The pale heliotrope of her dress was killed. She was insignificant to the eye. Conscious of this eclipse, hating herself for having put on heliotrope and yet wondering which of her usual half-tone costumes she could have worn, she paid her tribute to the designer with acid politeness. She wished she had not come. Clementina as fishfag and Clementina as Princess were two totally different people. She could deal with the one. How could she deal with the other? The irony in Clementina’s glance made her quiver with fury; her heart still burned hot with the indignation of the first greeting. She felt herself to be in the midst of hostile influences. Griffiths, a man of unimaginative fact, plunged headlong into a discourse on comparative statistics of accidents to railway servants. She listened absently, angry with Quixtus for pairing her with so dreary a fellow. Griffiths, irritated by her non-intelligence, transferred the lecture to his other neighbour as soon as an opportunity occurred. Lena Fontaine awaited her chance with Lord Radfield. But Clementina held him amused and interested, and soon drew General Barnes into the talk. With the slough of her old outer trappings Clementina had cast off the slough of her abrupt and unconventional speech. She was a woman of acute intellect, wide reading and wide observation. She had ideas and wit and she had come out this evening flamingly determined to use all her powers. Her success sent her pulses throbbing. Here were two men, at the outset of her experiment, hanging on her words, paying indubitable homage, not to the woman of brains, not to the well-known painter, but to the essential woman herself. The talk quickly became subtle, personal, a quick interchange of hinted sentiment, that makes for charm. When Lord Radfield at last turned to Lena Fontaine, she could offer him nothing but commonplaces; Goodwood, a scandal or so, the fortunes of a bridge club. Clementina adroitly brought them both quickly into her circle, and Lena Fontaine had the