She exchanged personal reminiscences with Lord Shervinton, who had once been attached to the Embassy at Rome, and with Mr.Hannaway Wells, who had been first secretary at Vienna.

She spoke amusingly of Munich, at which place, it appeared, she had first studied art, but dilated, with all the artist's fervour, on her travellings in Spain, on the soft yet wonderfully vivid colouring of the southern cities.

She seemed to have escaped altogether from the gravity of which she had displayed traces on the previous evening.

She was no longer the serious young woman with a purpose.

From the chrysalis she had changed into the butterfly, the brilliant and cosmopolitan young queen of fashion, ruling easily, not with the arrogance of rank, but with the actual gifts of charm and wit.