She knew exactly what to do with it; how to lead
it on, how to fend it off, how to throw cold water on its enterprise
without dashing it too greatly, how to banish any little, sulky cloud
that might appear on the brassy horizon without seeming to be solicitous.
The type is amazingly familiar to the woman of the London world. She can
recognize it at a glance, and can send it in its armchair canter round
the circus with scarce a crack of the ring-mistress's whip.
To-night Lady Holme enjoyed governing it more than usual, and for a
subtle reason.
In testing her power upon Leo Ulford she was secretly practising her
siren's art, with a view that would have surprised and disgusted him,
still more amazed him, had he known it. She was firing at the dummy in
order that later she might make sure of hitting the living man. Leo
Ulford was the dummy. The living man would be Fritz.
Both dummy and living man were profoundly ignorant of her moving
principle. The one was radiant with self-satisfaction under her
fusillade. The other, ignorant of it so far, would have been furious in
the knowledge of it.
She knew-and laughed at the men.
Presently she turned the conversation, which was getting a little too
personal--on Leo Ulford's side--to a subject very present in her mind
that night.
"Did you have a talk with Miss Schley the other day after I left?" she
asked. "I ran away on purpose to give you a chance.
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