so well. She _was_ the sister who had remained within the pale; I, the
rapscallion of a brother whose vagaries were trying to his relations.
That was the note she struck, and she maintained it. I didn't know what
the deuce she was driving at, and I didn't care. These scenes with a
touch of madness appealed to me. I was going to live, and here,
apparently, was a woman ready to my hand. Besides, she was making a fool
of Callan, and that pleased me. His patronising manners had irritated
me.

I assisted rather silently. They began to talk of mutual
acquaintances--as one talks. They both seemed to know everyone in this
world. She gave herself the airs of being quite in the inner ring;
alleged familiarity with quite impossible persons, with my portentous
aunt, with Cabinet Ministers--that sort of people. They talked about
them--she, as if she lived among them; he, as if he tried very hard to
live up to them.

She affected reverence for his person, plied him with compliments that
he swallowed raw--horribly raw. It made me shudder a little; it was
tragic to see the little great man confronted with that woman. It
shocked me to think that, really, I must appear much like him--must have
looked like that yesterday. He was a little uneasy, I thought, made
little confidences as if in spite of himself; little confidences about
the _Hour_, the new paper for which I was engaged. It seemed to be run
by a small gang with quite a number of assorted axes to grind. There was
some foreign financier--a person of position whom she knew (a noble man
in the _best_ sense, Callan said); there was some politician (she knew
him too, and he was equally excellent, so Callan said), Mr. Churchill
himself, an artist or so, an actor or so--and Callan. They all wanted a
little backing, so it seemed. Callan, of course, put it in another way.