ather than mind; Sir Wilson with that daily hardening concentration
with which old Hedonists take to a hobby; nay, even the abject
Parkinson, who had known her before her triumphs, and who followed her
about the room with eyes or feet, with the dumb fascination of a dog.

A shrewd person might also have noted a yet odder thing. The man like a
black wooden Noah (who was not wholly without shrewdness) noted it with
a considerable but contained amusement. It was evident that the great
Aurora, though by no means indifferent to the admiration of the other
sex, wanted at this moment to get rid of all the men who admired her and
be left alone with the man who did not--did not admire her in that
sense at least; for the little priest did admire and even enjoy the
firm feminine diplomacy with which she set about her task. There was,
perhaps, only one thing that Aurora Rome was clever about, and that was
one half of humanity--the other half. The little priest watched, like a
Napoleonic campaign, the swift precision of her policy for expelling all
while banishing none. Bruno, the big actor, was so babyish that it
was easy to send him off in brute sulks, banging the door. Cutler, the
British officer, was pachydermatous to ideas, but punctilious about
behaviour. He would ignore all hints, but he would die rather than
ignore a definite commission from a lady. As to old Seymour, he had to
be treated differently; he had to be left to the last. The only way to
move him was to appeal to him in confidence as an old friend, to let him
into the secret of the clearance. The priest did really admire Miss Rome
as she achieved all these three objects in one selected action.

She went across to Captain Cutler and said in her sweetest manner:
"I shall value all these flowers, because they must be your favourite
flowers. But they won't be complete, you know, without my favourite
flower. Do go over to that shop round the corner and get me some
lilies-of-the-valley, and then it will be quite lovely."

The first object of her diplomacy, the exit of the enraged Bruno, was at
once achieved. He had already handed his spear in a lordly style, like
a sceptre, to the piteous Parkinson, and was about to assume one of
the cushioned seats like a throne. But at this open appeal to his rival
there glowed in his opal eyeballs all the sensitive insolence of the
slave; he knotted his enormous brown fists for an instant, and then,
dashing open the door, disappeared