No one was kinder to me at that time than Rose Waterford. She combined a masculine

intelligence with a feminine perversity, and the novels she wrote were original and

disconcerting. It was at her house one day that I met Charles Strickland's wife. Miss

Waterford was giving a tea- party, and her small room was more than usually full. Everyone

seemed to be talking, and I, sitting in silence,felt awkward; but I was too shy to break into

any of the groups that seemed absorbed in their own affairs. Miss Waterford was a good

hostess, and seeing my embarrassment came up to me. "I want you to talk to Mrs. Strickland,"she said."She's raving about your book."

"What does she do?" I asked. I was conscious of my ignorance, and if Mrs. Strickland was a well- known writer I

thought it as well to ascertain the fact before I spoke to her. Rose Waterford cast down her eyes demurely to give greater effect to her reply. "She gives luncheon-parties. You've only got to roar a little, and she'll ask you." Rose Waterford was a cynic. She looked upon life as an opportunity for writing novels and

the public as her raw material. Now and then she invited members of it to her house if they

showed an appreciation of her talent and entertained with proper lavishness. She held their

weakness for lions in good-humoured contempt, but played to them her part of the

distinguished woman of letters with decorum. I was led up to Mrs.Strickland, and for ten minutes we talked together. I noticed nothing

about her except that she had a pleasant voice. She had a flat in Westminster, overlooking the

unfinished cathedral, and because we lived in the same neighbourhood we felt friendly

disposed to one another. The Army and Navy Stores are a bond of union between all who

dwell between the river and St. James's Park. Mrs. Strickland asked me for my address, and a

few days later I received an invitation to luncheon. My engagements were few. and I was glad to accet. When I arrived,a little late, because in

my fear of being too early I had walked three times round the cathedral, I found the party

already complete. Miss Waterford was there and Mrs. Jay, Richard Twining and George

Road. We were all writers. It was a fine day, early in spring, and we were in a good humour. We talked about a hundred things. Miss Waterford, torn between the aestheticism of her early

youth, when she used to go to parties in sage green, holding a daffodil, and the flippancy of

her maturer years,which tended to high heels and Paris frocks,wore a new hat. It put her in

high spirits. I had never heard her more malicious about our common friends. Mrs. Jay, aware that impropriety is the soul of wit,made observations in tones hardly above a whisper

that might well have tinged the snowy tablecloth with a rosy hue. Richard Twining bubbled

over with quaint absurdities, and George Road, conscious that he need not exhibit a

brilliancy which was almost a by-word, opened his mouth only to put food into it. Mrs. Strickland did not talk much, but she had a pleasant gift for keeping the conversation

general;and when there was a pause she threw in just the right remark to set it going once

more.She was a woman of thirty- seven, rather tall and plump, without being fat; she was not

pretty, but her face was pleasing, chiefly,perhaps, on account of her kind brown eyes. Her

skin was rather sallow. Her dark hair was elaborately dressed. She was the only woman of

the three whose face was free of make-up,and by contrast with the others she seemed simple

and unaffected. The dining-room was in the good taste of the period. It was very severe. There was a high

dado of white wood and a green paper on which were etchings by Whistler in neat black

frames. The green curtains with their peacock design, hung in straight lines, and the green

carpet, in the pattern of which pale rabbits frolicked among leafy trees, suggested the

influence of William Morris. There was blue delft on the chimneypiece. At that time there

must have been five hundred dining- rooms in London decorated in exactly the same manner. It was chaste, artistic, and dull. When we left I walked away with Miss Waterford, and the fine day and her new hat

persuaded us to saunter through the Park. "That was a very nice party," I said. "Did you think the food was good? I told her that if she wanted writers she must feed them

well."

"Admirable advice," I answered. "But why does she want them?" Miss Waterford shrugged her shoulders. "She finds them amusing. She wants to be in the movement.I fancy she's rather simple, poor dear, and she thinks we're all wonderful. After all, it pleases her to ask us to luncheon, and it doesn't hurt us. I like her for it." Looking back, I think that Mrs. Strickland was the most harmless of all the lion-hunters

that pursue their quarry from the rarefied heights of Hampstead to the nethermost studios of

Cheyne Walk. She had led a very quiet youth in the country, and the books that came down

from Mudie's Library brought with them not only their own romance,but the romance of

London. She had a real passion for reading (rare in her kind, who for the most part are more

interested in the author than in his book, in the painter than in his pictures), and she invented

a world of the imagination in which she lived with a freedom she never acquired in the world

of every day. When she came to know writers it was like adventuring upon a stage which till

then she had known only from the other side of the footlights.She saw them dramatically, and really seemed herself to live a larger life because she entertained them and visited them

in their fastnesses. She accepted the rules with which they played the game of life as valid

for them, but never for a moment thought of regulating her own conduct in accordance with

them. Their moral eccentricities, like their oddities of dress, their wild theories and

paradoxes, were an entertainment which amused her, but had not the slightest influence on

her convictions. "Is there a Mr. Strickland?" I asked

"Oh yes; he's something in the city. I believe he's a stockbroker. He's very dull."

"Are they good friends?"

"They adore one another.You'll meet him if you dine there. But she doesn't often have

people to dinner. He's very quiet. He's not in the least interested in literature or the arts."

"Why do nice women marry dull men?"

"Because intelligent men won't marry nice women."

I could not think of any retort to this, so I asked if Mrs. Strickland had children. "Yes; she has a boy and a girl. They're both at school." The subject was exhausted,and we began to talk of other things