"Her feet, perhaps. They are lovely. But she has no gifts. That's why she gets on. Gifted people are a drug in the market. London's sick of them. They worry. Pimpernel's found that out and gone in for the savage state. I mean mentally of course."

"Her mind dwells in a wigwam," said Lady Manby. "And wears glass beads and little bits of coloured cloth."

"But her acting?" asked Lady Holme, with careless indifference.

"Oh, that's improper but not brilliant," said Mrs. Wolfstein. "The American critics says it's beneath contempt."

"But not beneath popularity, I suppose?" said Lady Holme.

"No, she's enormously popular. Newspaper notices don't matter to Pimpernel. Are you going to ask her to your house? You might. She's longing to come. Everybody else has, and she knew you first."

Lady Holme began to realise why she could never like Mrs. Wolfstein. The latter would try to manage other people's affairs.

"I had no idea she would care about it," she answered, rather coldly.

"My dear--an American! And your house! You're absurdly modest. She's simply pining to come. May I tell her to?"

"I should prefer to invite her myself," said Lady Holme, with a distinct touch of hauteur which made Mrs. Wolfstein smile maliciously.

When Lady Holme was alone she realised that she had, half unconsciously, meant that Miss Schley should find that there was at any rate one house in London whose door did not at once fly open to welcome her demure presence. But now? She certainly did not intend to be a marked exception to a rule that was apparently very general. If people were going to talk about her exclusion of Miss Schley, she would certainly not exclude her. She asked herself why she wished to, and said to herself that Miss Schley's slyness bored her. But she knew that the real reason of the secret hostility she felt towards the American was the fact of their resemblance to each other. Until Miss Schley appeared in London she--Viola Holme--had been original both in her beauty and in her manner of presenting it to the world. Miss Schley was turning her into a type.

It was too bad. Any woman would have disliked it.

She wondered whether Miss Schley recognised the likeness. But of course people had spoken to her about it. Mrs. Wolfstein was her bosom friend.

The Jewess had met her first at Carlsbad and, with that terrible social flair which often dwells in Israel, had at once realised her fitness for a London success and resolved to "get her over." Women of the Wolfstein species are seldom jealously timorous of the triumphs of other women.

A certain coarse cleverness, a certain ingrained assurance and unconquerable self-confidence keeps them hardy. And they generally have a noble reliance on the power of the tongue. Being incapable of any fear of Miss Schley, Mrs. Wolfstein, ever on the look-out for means of improving her already satisfactory position in the London world, saw one in the vestal virgin and resolved to launch her in England. She was delighted with the result. Miss Schley had already added several very desirable people to the Wolfstein visiting-list. In return "Henry" had "put her on to" one or two very good things in the City. Everything would be most satisfactory if only Lady Holme were not tiresome about the Cadogan Square door.

"She hates you, Pimpernel," said Mrs. Wolfstein to her friend.

"Why?" drawled Miss Schley.

"You know why perfectly well. You reproduce her looks. I'm perfectly certain she's dreading your first night. She's afraid people will begin to think that extraordinary colourless charm she and you possess stagey.

Besides, you have certain mannerisms--you don't imitate her, Pimpernel?"

The pawnbroking expression was remarkably apparent for a moment in Mrs.

Wolfstein's eyes.

"I haven't started to yet."

"Yet?"

"Well, if she don't ask me to number thirty-eight--'tis thirty-eight?"

"Forty-two."

"Forty-two Cadogan Square, I might be tempted. I came out as a mimic, you know, at Corsher and Byall's in Philadelphia."

Miss Schley gazed reflectively upon the brown carpet of Mrs. Wolfstein's boudoir.

"Folks said I wasn't bad," she added meditatively.

"I think I ought to warn Viola," said Mrs. Wolfstein.

She was peculiarly intimate with people of distinction when they weren't there. Miss Schley looked as if she had not heard. She often did when anything of importance to her was said. It was important to her to be admitted to Lady Holme's house. Everybody went there. It was one of the very smartest houses in London, and since everybody knew that she had been introduced to Lady Holme, since half the world was comparing their faces and would soon begin to compare their mannerisms--well, it would be better that she should not be forced into any revival of her Philadelphia talents.

Mrs. Wolfstein did not warn Lady Holme. She was far too fond of being amused to do anything so short-sighted. Indeed, from that moment she was inclined to conspire to keep the Cadogan Square door shut against her friend. She did not go so far as that; for she had a firm faith in Pimpernel's cuteness and was aware that she would be found out. But she remained passive and kept her eyes wide open.

Miss Schley was only going to act for a month in London. Her managers had taken a theatre for her from the first of June till the first of July. As she was to appear in a play she had already acted in all over the States, and as her American company was coming over to support her, she had nothing to do in the way of preparation. Having arrived early in the year, she had nearly three months of idleness to enjoy. Her conversation with Mrs. Wolfstein took place in the latter days of March.

And it was just at this period that Lady Holme began seriously to debate whether she should, or should not, open her door to the American. She knew Miss Schley was determined to come to her house. She knew her house was one of those to which any woman setting out on the conquest of London would wish to come. She did not want Miss Schley there, but she resolved to invite her if peopled talked too much about her not being invited. And she wished to be informed if they did. One day she spoke to Robin Pierce about it. Lord Holme's treatment of Carey had not yet been applied to him. They met at a private view in Bond Street, given by a painter who was adored by the smart world, and, as yet, totally unknown in every other circle. The exhibition was of portraits of beautiful women, and all the beautiful women and their admirers crowded the rooms.

Both Lady Holme and Miss Schley had been included among the sitters of the painter, and--was it by chance or design?--their portraits hung side by side upon the brown-paper-covered walls. Lady Holme was not aware of this when she caught Robin's eye through a crevice in the picture hats and called him to her with a little nod.

"Is there tea?"

"Yes. In the last room."

"Take me there. Oh, there's Ashley Greaves. Avoid him, like a dear, till I've looked at something."

Ashley Greaves was the painter. There was nothing of the Bohemian about him. He looked like a heavy cavalry officer as he stood in the centre of the room talking to a small, sharp-featured old lady in a poke bonnet.

"He's safe. Lady Blower's got hold of him."

"Poor wretch! She ought to have a keeper. Strong tea, Robin."

They found a settee in a corner walled in by the backs of tea-drinking beauties.

"I want to ask you something," said Lady Holme, confidentially. "You go about and hear what they're saying."

"And greater nonsense it seems each new season."

"Nonsense keeps us alive."

"Is it the oxygen self-administered by an almost moribund society?"

"It's the perfume that prevents us from noticing the stuffiness of the room. But, Robin, tell me--what is the nonsense of now?"

"Religious, political, theatrical, divorce court or what, Lady Holme?"

He looked at her with a touch of mischief in his dark face, which told her, and was meant to tell her, that he was on the alert, and had divined that she had a purpose in thus pleasantly taking possession of him.

"Oh, the people--nonsense. You know perfectly what I mean."

"Whom are they chattering about most at the moment? You'll be contemptuous if I tell you."

"It's a woman, then?"

"When isn't it?"

"Do I know her?"