Then there was her cheerfulness, and the menacing voice!

Turning from the aloofness of the exclusive, Lady Durwent thought of
taking in famous performing Lions and feeding them. Unfortunately the
market was too brisk, and the only Lion she could get was an Italian
tenor from Covent Garden, who refused to roar, but left a poignant
memory of garlic.

It was then that a brilliant idea entered her brain. Lady Durwent
decided to cultivate _unusual_ people.

No longer would she batter at oak doors that refused to open; no more
would she dangle morsels of food in front of overfed Lions. She would
create a little Kingdom of remarkable people--not those acclaimed great
by the mealy mob, but those whose genius was of so rare and subtle a
growth that ordinary eyes could not detect it at all. Her only fear
was that she might be unable to discover a sufficient number to create
a really satisfactory _clientèle_.

But she reckoned without her London.

For every composer in the Metropolis who is trying to translate the
music of the spheres, there are a dozen who can only voice the
discordant jumble of their minds or ask the world to listen to the
hollow echo of their creative vacuum. For every artist striving to
catch some beauty of nature that he may revisualise it on canvas, there
are a score whose eyes can only cling to the malformation of existence.
For every writer toiling in the quiet hours to touch some poor, dumb
heart-strings, or to open unseeing eyes to the joy of life, there are
many whose gaze is never lifted from the gutter, so that, when they