Even
after she had left the room, the atmosphere which she had created
seemed to linger behind her.
"I have never rightly understood Miss Abbeway," the Bishop
declared. "She is a most extraordinarily brilliant young woman."
Lord Shervinton assented.
"To-night you have Catherine Abbeway," he expounded, "as she might
have been but for these queer, alternating crazes of hers--art
and socialism. Her brain was developed a little too early, and
she was unfortunately, almost in her girlhood, thrown in with a
little clique of brilliant young Russians who attained a great
influence over her. Most of them are in Siberia or have
disappeared by now. One Anna Katinski--was brought back from
Tobolsk like a royal princess on the first day of the revolution."
"It is strange," the Earl pronounced didactically, "that a young
lady of Miss Abbeway's birth and gifts should espouse the cause of
this Labour rabble, a party already cursed with too many leaders."
"A woman, when she takes up a cause," Mr. Hannaway Wells observed,
"always seeks either for the picturesque or for something which
appeals to the emotions. So long as she doesn't mix with them,
the cause of the people has a great deal to recommend it. One can
use beautiful phrases, can idealise with a certain amount of
logic, and can actually achieve things."
Julian shrugged his shoulders.
"I think we are all a little blind," he remarked, "to the danger
in which we stand through the great prosperity of Labour to-day.
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