Her theater wrap and fan she had laid over a chair.
It was not to the drama which she had seen superbly acted at the Parthenon that her thoughts went out; but to the words which her dearest friend had spoken when driving back from the theater.
What words were they?
She could not recollect them now; but she was still conscious of the impression which they had produced upon her while they were being spoken.

That impression was that up to that instant all the issues of her life had been unworthy of a moment's consideration.

She had taken what she believed to be a deep interest in many matters during the five years that she had been the head of her father's house.

She had, she knew, been of the greatest help to her father in his political life, not merely turning her memory to good account in discovering the incautious phrases in the speeches of the men who were foolish enough to be his opponents, but actually advising him, when he asked her, on many matters about which the newspapers had been full.

Then she had taken an active part in more than one of those "movements" which became the topic of a London season until compelled by an invisible but all-powerful authority to move on and make way for the next new thing.