He began to envisage what these highly trained women of the upper class, these _raffinees_ of the world, may be for those who understand them--a stimulus, an enigma, an education.
It flashed on him that women of this type could teach him much that he wanted to know; and his ambition seized on the idea.

But what chance that she would ever give another thought to the raw artist to whom her father had flung a passing invitation?
He made haste, indeed, to prove his need of her or some other Egeria; for she was no sooner departed with the other ladies than he came to mischief.

Left alone with the gentlemen, his temperament asserted itself.

He had no mind in any company to be merely a listener.
Moreover, that slight, as he regarded it, of sending him down without a lady, still rankled; and last, but not least, he had drunk a good deal of champagne, to which he was quite unaccustomed.

So that when Lord Findon fell into a discussion with the Ambassador of Irving's _Hamlet_ and _Othello_, then among the leading topics of London--when the foreigner politely but emphatically disparaged the English actor and Lord Findon with zeal defended him--who should break into the august debate but this strong-browed, black-eyed fellow, from no one knew where, whose lack of some of the smaller conventions had already been noticed by a few of the company.
At first all looked well.