Once or twice during the season it was the custom of the Countess Aurelia Van Homrigh to give a literary party. This party had at first been but a small social gathering, invitations being issued only to a few of the most select of the lady’s literary and scientific friends, but every year the invitations had grown more numerous, until the yearly reunions became quite the mode, and each one was an event to which the world of art, science, and letters looked forward with delight.

The Countess was a pretty little Englishwoman, married to a foreign adventurer, who had made an enormous fortune in certain obscure branches of trade. While yet a maiden Miss Aurelia Blackeston was well known in aesthetic circles as the writer of many charming volumes of verse, and as the favoured lady to whom a certain great and titled poet addressed the lines commencing


‘Aurelia, pretty one, brightest of blues!’


As a wife and a lady of title the same lady doubled her social charms. Her husband, standing quietly in her shadow, watched her with morose adoration, whilst she dispensed hospitality to all the lions of the land.

For Aurelia loved a lion, just as some people love a lord. On each occasion there were new ones to be sought out, secured and made much of, before the party could be complete. In difficulties of this sort she generally appealed to her old friend and admirer Serena, who, being full-manned and leonine himself, was a good judge of the noble animal in demand. Serena, we may remark en passant, had painted the Countess in every attitude and from every conceivable point of view; as a Pythoness, as a ‘Psyche by the Waters of Love’s Wanness,’ as ‘A Study in Rose Pink,’ as ‘Vivien the Enchantress,’ in which doleful composition the painter himself appeared as Merlin; and most of these portraits adorned the walls of the cerulean house at Barnes, on the banks of the Thames.

One morning, early in the season, Madeline, sitting at breakfast with her husband, received the Countess’s invitation; accompanying it was a little note from Serena. ‘I hope you will come; indeed, you must come,’ wrote the great man, ‘since on this occasion the fair Aurelia’s rooms will be graced by the presence of a gentleman whom I wish particularly to make known to you, a charming creature whose soul is redolent of music and divine song. He comes to my rooms, he contemplates your picture by the hour—he vows that so divine a creature cannot exist. I wish to show him that she does exist, and that, in trying to place it upon canvas, my poor hand has signally failed.’

Madeline read the letter with a smile, then she handed it to her husband.

‘The Countess is not content with mere lions this year,’ she said. ‘She evidently intends to make a lioness of me. Shall we go?’

‘Yes, we had better go, my dear,’ returned Forster quietly. ‘Beneath all her humbug the Countess is an excellent person; she would be really pained if we stayed away.’

So without more ado—without more thought—the step was taken which was to become the great turning point in Madeline’s life.

Breakfast over, Forster went to the City, while Madeline wrote a little note accepting the lady’s invitation; then put the whole matter from her mind, ordered her carriage, and an hour later was driving down Regent Street, with the little boy who was now her constant companion.

The life into which Madeline had entered on her marriage had proved so far to be a happy one. James Forster, always kind and considerate, was devoted to his young wife; while Madeline tried to repay some of his kindness to her by lavishing her affection on his child. ‘He shall never repent marrying me,’ she said to herself a hundred times a day. ‘He alone knows I did not bring him honour, but I will bring him happiness.’ And she tried to keep her word.

Meantime, the days flew past, and at length the momentous one arrived on which Mr. and Mrs. Forster were to appear at the Countess’s house at Barnes. Forster went to the City as usual, but promised to return early; he was detained, however, so that when he reached home he found his wife already arrayed for the night. He looked at her, then gently kissed her.

‘Madeline, my dear,’ he said, ‘I never saw you look more lovely’: then he added quietly—‘Should you mind very much, my love, if I stayed at home to-night?’

‘Stayed at home?’

‘Yes, I have had one of my nervous headaches all day, and I don’t feel equal to facing the Countess’s crowded rooms.’

‘Then you shall remain at home, and I will remain with you.’

‘Not so, my love: you must go, and Margaret shall accompany you.’

‘But I would rather stay.’

‘Nonsense, Madeline. If you talk like that I shall go, and punish you for your perversity by being more than usually disagreeable.’

So it was settled, the carriage was ordered, and Madeline drove down to Barnes with Miss Forster by her side.

The gathering, as we have said, was always numerous, but this time it seemed of greater importance than ever. The street on the river side was so blocked with carriages that some time elapsed before Forster’s brougham could pull up at the door, and when at length it did, and the ladies passed over the carpeted pavement into the hall, they found themselves in so dense a throng that it was with difficulty they made their way along at all. At length, however, they reached the top of the crowded staircase, at the door of a crowded room. Here Madeline paused; her eyes, lately accustomed to the darkness, were dazzled by the brilliant glare of light which met them, so that at first she could find out nothing very distinctly; in a moment, however, the feeling of confusion passed away, and with one swift glance she took in the scene.

In a suite of lofty rooms running from one to another, like a picture gallery, and almost as thickly covered with works of art, were ladies and gentlemen of all shapes and ages, the majority of the ladies clad in what is now known as the aesthetic, or high-waisted, style, and the greater number of the gentlemen resembling one another in a certain limp and flaccid self-consciousness of attitude. Scattered here and there, as a sort of leaven, were swarthy artists, with beards, spectacled savants and scientists, stout literary ladies, and acidulous lady members of the London School Board. It was, indeed, a scene too familiar to need much describing. The chatter was deafening, reminding an irreverent spectator of the noise in the monkey-house at the Zoological Gardens.

While Madeline and Miss Forster stood hesitating within the threshold of the room, they were espied from a distance by Serena, who immediately made his way over to them, and forthwith, in the manner of one having authority, led them to the lady of the house.

The Countess, who was shining resplendent in a dress composed entirely of Indian shawls folded tight round her lissome figure, welcomed Madeline with effusion, and gave the tip of her fingers to Miss Forster; then after a little desultory prattle, she introduced Madeline to a limp gentleman standing near, and floated away to another part of the room.

‘A charming creature the Countess,’ said the limp gentleman. ‘So far above the vulgar prejudices of our too crowded civilisation, with no creed but Beauty, and no God but Art.’

‘Yes,’ murmured Madeline, scarcely attending, as she gazed rather vacantly round the room.

‘Have you seen Botticelli Jones’s picture of her ladyship as “A Lily of Languor in the Garden of Proserpine”? No? Well, Ponto says it is the most superbly sane and cosmic thing——’

He was interrupted by a cry from Madeline, who, leaving his side without a word of apology, crossed the room rapidly, and approached a grim-looking person with a light beard, clad in a very shabby dress suit and rather disreputable boots.

This was no other person than Jack Bingham, an artist by profession, of the old ‘pipe and beer’ school, and a bosom friend of Marmaduke White.

‘What, Jack!’ she cried, holding out both her hands.

Everybody called him Jack.

As she spoke the grim face relaxed into a smile.

‘What, is it you?’ returned Jack, with a delighted laugh.

‘Yes, and I am so glad to see you. But who would have thought of meeting you here, of all the places in the world? Dear, dear Jack, the very sight of you calls up old times.’

And tears stood in her eyes as she gazed upon his homely face. Jack was affected too in his rough way, so he made a diversion.

‘Beastly slow, isn’t it?’ he said. ‘There doesn’t seem to be a smoke room, and none of the fellows are my sort.’

‘Why haven’t you come to see me?’ asked Madeline, nodding.

‘Since your marriage?’

‘Yes.’

‘Well, I don’t know—you didn’t ask me—and your husband’s a swell.’

‘He’s nothing of the sort, Jack, and as to not being asked, you ought to have known my house was open to every friend of my dear guardian. You might smoke in the drawing-room if you liked, and no one would object.’

Jack laughed.

‘I’m not quite such a beast as that; but there, I’ll come since you wish it, and have a talk about old times.’

At this point they were interrupted by Blanco Serena.

‘Mrs. Forster,’ said he, ‘permit me; I wish to make two clever people known to each other.’

Madeline placed her hand on Serena’s proffered arm, and with a smile and a nod to Bingham moved a few steps away. Presently she paused and looked up into her companion’s face.

‘Mr. Serena,’ she said, ‘who is the person? Nobody very clever, I hope; I am so afraid of very clever people.’

‘I am going, my dear Imogen, to introduce you to one who, if the “Megatherium” is to be trusted, is one of the greatest minds of the age. A man who is all spirit, whose ............