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The movement of Society in this particular case was rendered the more facile by the emptiness of the hall, from which everything had been taken except the Great Stuffed Bear which had been shot by the servant of a trapper who had sold it to the correspondent of the furrier of Lady Petherington, and which now stood holding a tray, with an expression of extreme ferocity, and labelled “The Caucasus, 17th June, 1910,”—for in those mountains Mr. Petherington—as he then was—had travelled.

Mary Smith was not disappointed. Mooning aimlessly about the crowded rooms above, in an atmosphere surcharged with mauve Moravian music—the loudest of its kind—shuffled the anxious and slightly bowed form of Dolly, the young and popular Prime Minister.

A foreigner might have thought him to have few friends, so slowly did he proceed and with so curious a gaze from one group to another, seeming half stunned by the vigour of the band and fascinated by the vigorous contortions of Mr. Arthur Worth who conducted it for all he was—I mean with his utmost capacity of gesture and expression. That foreigner would have suffered an illusion. The Prime Minister was perfectly well known in face and figure to every one in that room, and there were few who did not hope for some advantage from his presence, but fewer, far fewer still, who attempted to obtain it. I must of course except Professor Kahn.