might occasionally gain, and keep, an advantage over a lovely
woman who did not talk so well. The sensation passed, but the fact that
it had ever been did not draw Lady Holme any closer to the woman with
the "pawnbroking expression" in her eyes.

Mrs. Wolfstein was not in the most exclusive set in London, but she was
in the smart set, which is no longer exclusive although it sometimes
hopes it is. She knew the racing people, nearly all the most fashionable
Jews, and those very numerous English patricians who like to go where
money is. She also knew the whole of Upper Bohemia, and was a _persona
gratissima_ in that happy land of talent and jealousy. She entertained
a great deal, generally at modish restaurants. Many French and Germans
were to be met with at her parties; and it was impossible to be with
either them or her for many minutes without hearing the most hearty and
whole-souled abuse of English aspirations, art, letters and cooking.
The respectability, the pictures, the books and the boiled cabbage of
Britain all came impartially under the lash.

Mrs. Wolfstein's origin was obscure. That she was a Jewess was known to
everybody, but few could say with certainty whether she was a German,
a Spanish, a Polish or an Eastern Jewess. She had much of the covert
coarseness and open impudence of a Levantine, and occasionally said
things which made people wonder whether, before she became Amalia
Wolfstein, she had not perhaps been--well really--something very strange
somewhere a long way off.

Her husband was shocking to look at: small, mean, bald, Semitic and
nervous, with large ears which curved outwards from his head like
leaves, and cheeks blue from much shaving. He was said to hide behind
his anxious manner an acuteness that was diabolic, and to have earned
his ill-health by sly dissipations for which he had paid enormous
sums. There were two Wolfstein children, a boy and a girl of eleven and
twelve; small, swarthy, frog-like, self-possessed. They already spoke
three languages, and their protruding eyes looked almost diseased with
intelligence.

The Wolfstein house, which was in Curzon Street, was not pretty,
Apparently neither Mrs. Wolfstein nor her husband, who was a financier
and company promoter on a very large scale, had good taste in furniture
and decoration. The mansion was spacious but dingy. There was a great
deal of chocolate and fiery yellow paint. There were many stuffy brown
carpets, and tables which