She was
a brilliant suggestionist, but not in conversation. Her face and her
voice, when she sang, were luring to the lovers of beauty. When she sang
she often expressed for them the under-thoughts and under-feelings of
secretly romantic, secretly wistful men and women, and drew them to her
as if by a spell. But her talk and manner in conversation were so unlike
her singing, so little accorded with the look that often came into her
eyes while she sang, that she was a perpetual puzzle to such elderly
men as Sir Donald Ulford, to such young men as Robin Pierce, and even to
some women. They came about her like beggars who have heard a chink of
gold, and she showed them a purse that seemed to be empty.

Was it the _milieu_ in which she lived, the influence of a vulgar and
greedy age, which prevented her from showing her true self except in
her art? Or was she that stupefying enigma sometimes met with, an
unintelligent genius?

There were some who wondered.

In her singing she seemed to understand, to love, to pity, to enthrone.
In her life she often seemed not to understand, not to love, not to
pity, not to place high.

She sang of Venice, and those who cannot even think of the city in the
sea without a flutter of the heart, a feeling not far from soft pain in
its tenderness and gratitude, listened to the magic bells at sunset, and
glided in the fairy barques across the liquid plains of gold. She
spoke of Venice, and they heard only the famished voice of the mosquito
uttering its midnight grace before meat.

Which was the real Venice?

Which was the real woman?

CHAPTER V

ON the following day, which was warm and damp; Lady Holme drove to Bond
Street, bought two new hats, had her hand read by a palmist who called
himself "Cupido," looked in at a ladies' club and then went to Mrs.
Wolfstein, with whom she was engaged to lunch. She did not wish to lunch
with her. She disliked Mrs. Wolfstein as she disliked most women, but
she had not been able to get out of it. Mrs. Wolfstein had overheard
her saying to Lady Cardington that she had nothing particular to do till
four that day, and had immediately "pinned her." Besides disliking
Mrs. Wolfstein, Lady Holme was a little afraid of her. Like many clever
Jewesses, Mrs. Wolfstein was a ruthless conversationalist, and enjoyed
showing off at the expense of others, even when they were her guests.
She had sometimes made Lady Holme feel stupid, even feel as if a good
talker