Julian, therefore, saw nothing more of
Catherine until she came into the drawing-room, a few minutes
before the announcement of dinner, wearing a wonderful toilette of
pale blue silk, with magnificent pearls around her neck and
threaded in her Russian headdress. As is the way with all women
of genius, Catherine's complete change of toilette indicated a
parallel change in her demeanour. Her interesting but somewhat
subdued manner of the previous evening seemed to have vanished.
At the dinner table she dominated the conversation. She displayed
an intimate acquaintance with every capital of Europe and with
countless personages of importance. She exchanged personal
reminiscences with Lord Shervinton, who had once been attached to
the Embassy at Rome, and with Mr. Hannaway Wells, who had been
first secretary at Vienna. She spoke amusingly of Munich, at
which place, it appeared, she had first studied art, but dilated,
with all the artist's fervour, on her travellings in Spain, on the
soft yet wonderfully vivid colouring of the southern cities. She
seemed to have escaped altogether from the gravity of which she
had displayed traces on the previous evening. She was no longer
the serious young woman with a purpose. From the chrysalis she
had changed into the butterfly, the brilliant and cosmopolitan
young queen of fashion, ruling easily, not with the arrogance of
rank, but with the actual gifts of charm and wit. Julian himself
derived little benefit from being her neighbour, for the
conversation that evening, from first to last, was general.
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