one
before the Arkell House ball and this first night, would not have been
noticed, or would have been merely smiled at, they would be commented
upon with acrimony, exaggerated, even condemned.

Miss Schley was turning upon her one of those mirrors which distorts by
enlarging. Society would be likely to see her permanently distorted, and
not only in mannerisms but in character.

It happened that this fact was specially offensive to her on this
particular evening, and at this particular moment of her life.

While she sat there and watched the scene run its course, and saw,
without seeming to see, the effect it had upon those whom she knew well
in the house--saw Mrs. Wolfstein's eager delight in it, Lady Manby's
broad amusement, Robin Pierce's carefully-controlled indignation,
Mr. Bry's sardonic and always cold gratification, Lady Cardington's
surprised, half-tragic wonder--she was oscillating between two courses,
one a course of reserve, of stern self-control and abnegation, the other
a course of defiance, of reckless indulgence of the strong temper that
dwelt within her, and that occasionally showed itself for a moment, as
it had on the evening of Miss Filberte's fiasco. That temper was flaming
now unseen. Was she going to throw cold water over the flame, or to fan
it? She did not know.

When the curtain fell, the critics, who sometimes seem to enjoy
personally what they call very sad and disgraceful in print, were
smiling at one another. The blank faces of the men about town in the
stalls were shining almost unctuously. The smart Americans were busily
saying to everyone, "Didn't we say so?" The whole house was awake. Miss
Schley might not be much of an actress. Numbers of people were already
bustling about to say that she could not act at all. But she had
banished dulness. She had shut the yawning lips, and stopped that uneasy
cough which is the expression of the relaxed mind rather than of the
relaxed throat.

Lady Holme sat back a little in the box.

"What d'you think of her?" she said to Sir Donald. "I think she's rather
piquant, not anywhere near Granier, of course, but still--"

"I think her performance entirely odious," he said, with an unusual
emphasis that was almost violent. "Entirely odious."

He got up from his seat, striking his thin fingers against the palms of
his hands.

"Vulgar and offensive," he said, almost as if to himself, and with a
sort of passion. "Vulgar and offensive!"

Suddenly he