“Nobody,” answered the child. “I knew.” In quiet streets of stately houses, she caught glimpses through uncurtained windows of richly-laid dinner-tables about which servants moved noiselessly, arranging flowers and silver. She wondered idly if she would every marry. A gracious hostess, gathering around her brilliant men and women, statesmen, writers, artists, captains of industry: counselling them, even learning from them: encouraging shy genius. Perhaps, in a perfectly harmless way, allowing it the inspiration derivable from a well-regulated devotion to herself. A salon that should be the nucleus of all those forces that influence influences, over which she would rule with sweet and wise authority. The idea appealed to her.!

“I heard you come in,” she said. “You’re not busy, are you?” “So did Archimedes disappear,” he answered with a smile. “The nameless Roman soldier remained. That was hardly the survival of the fittest.”

“There are more important things than saving men’s bodies. You think that, don’t you?” he asked. “It doesn’t matter, dearie,” she explained. “They know, if they find it open, that I’m in.” “No,” she answered with a smile. “But it will hurt me if you fail. Remember that.”