"Well," Catherine continued, "that is Mr. Braithwaiter the playwright,
a little to the left--the man, with the smooth grey hair and eyeglass.
Mrs. Hamilton Beardsmore you know, of course; her husband is commanding
his regiment in Egypt."

"The lady on my left?"

"Lady Grayson. She comes up from the country once a month to buy food.
You needn't mind her. She is stone deaf and prefers dining to talking."

"I am relieved," the Baron confessed, with a little sigh. "I addressed
her as we sat down, and she made no reply. I began to wonder if I had
offended."

"The man next me," she went on, "is Mr. Millson Gray. He is an American
millionaire, over here to study our Y.M.C.A. methods. He can talk of
nothing else in the world but Y.M.C.A. huts and American investments,
and he is very hungry."

"The conditions," the Baron observed, "seem favourable for a
tete-a-tete."

Catherine smiled up into his imperturbable face. The wine had brought a
faint colour to her cheeks, and the young man sighed regretfully at
the idea of her prospective engagement. He had always been one of
Catherine's most pronounced admirers.

"But what are we to talk about?" she asked. "On the really interesting
subjects your lips are always closed. You are a marvel of discretion,
you know, Baron--even to me."

"That is perhaps because you hide your real personality under so many
aliases."

"I must think that over," she murmured.

"You," he continued, "are an aristocrat of the aristocrats. I can quite
conceive that you found your position in Russia incompatible with modern
ideas. The Russian aristocracy, if you will forgive my saying so, is in
for a bad time which it has done its best to thoroughly deserve. But in
England your position is scarcely so comprehensible. Here you come to
a sanely governed country, which is, to all effects and purposes, a
country governed by the people for the people. Yet here, within two
years, you have made yourself one of the champions of democracy. Why?
The people are not ill-treated. On the contrary, I should call them
pampered."

"You do not understand," she explained earnestly. "In Russia it was the
aristocracy who oppressed the people, shamefully and malevolently. In
England it is the bourgeoisie who rule the country and stand in the
light of Labour. It is the middleman, the profiteer, the new capitalist
here who has become an ugly and a dominant power. Labour has the
means by which to assert itself and to cla