CHAPTER XIV.
THE "CRITERION" Mrs.Nevill's account of herself, though somewhat highly colored, was substantially true.

When Stanistreet suggested defeat, it was his first allusion to her husband's desertion of her; and like most of Louis's utterances, it was full of tact.
Defeat?
She had brooded over the idea, and then apparently she had an inspiration.
From that day, wherever there was a sufficiently important crowd to see her, Mrs.Nevill Tyson was to be seen.

She was generally with Louis Stanistreet, who was not a figure to be overlooked; she was always exquisitely dressed; and sometimes, not often, she was delicately painted and powdered.

Mrs.Nevill Tyson hated what was commonplace and loud; and she had to make herself conspicuous in a season when women dressed _fortissimo_, and a fashionable crowd was like a bed of flowers in June.
Somehow she managed to strike some resonant minor chord of color that went throbbing through that confused orchestra.

Everywhere she went people turned and stared at her as she flashed by; and apparently her one object was to be stared at.