Julian himself derived little benefit from being her neighbour, for the conversation that evening, from first to last, was general.

Even after she had left the room, the atmosphere which she had created seemed to linger behind her.
"I have never rightly understood Miss Abbeway," the Bishop declared.
"She is a most extraordinarily brilliant young woman." Lord Shervinton assented.
"To-night you have Catherine Abbeway," he expounded, "as she might have been but for these queer, alternating crazes of hers--art and socialism.
Her brain was developed a little too early, and she was unfortunately, almost in her girlhood, thrown in with a little clique of brilliant young Russians who attained a great influence over her.

Most of them are in Siberia or have disappeared by now.

One Anna Katinski--was brought back from Tobolsk like a royal princess on the first day of the revolution." "It is strange," the Earl pronounced didactically, "that a young lady of Miss Abbeway's birth and gifts should espouse the cause of this Labour rabble, a party already cursed with too many leaders." "A woman, when she takes up a cause," Mr.Hannaway Wells observed, "always seeks either for the picturesque or for something which appeals to the emotions.

So long as she doesn't mix with them, the cause of the people has a great deal to recommend it.