e 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