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The guests were few and choice. There was Mr. Meander, the poet, one of
the leading lights in that new sect which prides itself upon the
cultivation of abstract beauty, and occasionally touches the verge of
concrete ugliness. There were a newspaper man--the editor of a
fashionable journal--and a middle-aged man of letters, playwright,
critic, humourist, a man whose society was in demand everywhere, and who
said sharp things with the most supreme good-nature. The only ladies
whose society Mr. Smithson had deemed worthy the occasion were a
fashionable actress, with her younger sister, the younger a pretty copy
of the elder, both dressed picturesquely in flowing cashmere gowns of
faint sea-green, with old lace fichus, leghorn hats, and a general
limpness and simplicity of style which suited their cast of feature and
delicate colouring. Lesbia wondered to see how good an effect could be
produced by a costume which could have cost so little. Mr. Nightshade,
the famous tragedian, had been also asked to grace the feast, but the
early hour made the invitation a mockery.


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