interesting to consider Mrs. Stormer's future in the light of her
having to write her son's novels as well as her own. This was not
the way she looked at it herself; she took the charming ground that
he would help her to write hers. She used to tell me that he
supplied passages of the greatest value to her own work--all sorts of
technical things, about hunting and yachting and wine--that she
couldn't be expected to get very straight. It was all so much
practice for him and so much alleviation for her. I was unable to
identify these pages, for I had long since ceased to "keep up" with
Greville Fane; but I was quite able to believe that the wine-question
had been put, by Leolin's good offices, on a better footing, for the
dear lady used to mix her drinks (she was perpetually serving the
most splendid suppers) in the queerest fashion. I could see that he
was willing enough to accept a commission to look after that
department. It occurred to me indeed, when Mrs. Stormer settled in
England again, that by making a shrewd use of both her children she
might be able to rejuvenate her style. Ethel had come back to
gratify her young ambition, and if she couldn't take her mother into
society she would at least go into it herself. Silently, stiffly,
almost grimly, this young lady held up her head, clenched her long
teeth, squared her lean elbows and made her way up the staircases she
had elected. The only communication she ever made to me, the only
effusion of confidence with which she ever honoured me, was when she
said: "I don't want to know the people mamma knows; I mean to know
others." I took due note of the remark, for I was not one of the
"others." I couldn't trace therefore the steps of her process; I
could only admire it at a distance and congratulate her mother on the
results. The results were that Ethel went to "big" parties and got
people to take her. Some of them were people she had met abroad, and
others were people whom the people she had met abroad had met. They