Sofia held the animal in a deadly loathing which, betrayed in word or look or gesture, animated in him only a spirit of derision.  In the absence of Victor, Sturm’s eyes were ever ironic, his bows and leers mocking, his speeches flavoured with clumsy sarcasm; from which it resulted that the girl never quite forgot the impression which he had managed to convey in those few moments of their first encounter, that Sturm knew something she ought to know but didn’t, and was meanly jeering at her in his sleeve.

What virtues Victor Vassilyevski perceived in the man passed comprehension.  But so did most of Victor’s whims and ways.  What riddle more obscure than that portentous business which permeated the atmosphere of the establishment with the taint of stealth and terror?—­the famous “research work” that kept Victor closeted with Sturm in his study daily for hours at a time, often in confabulation with others of like ilk, men of furtive and unprepossessing cast who came and went by appointment at all hours, but as a rule late at night!

Into these conferences, Sofia observed, Karslake was never summoned.  She wondered why.  He was, as she saw him, so unquestionably the better man, everything that Sturm was not, open of countenance, fair of temper and tongue, well-bred and well-mannered, light of heart and high spirited, and at the same time dependable, with metal of sincerity and earnestness like tempered steel in his character—­or Sofia misread him woefully.

She had been quick to see the man behind the misleading little moustache.  And already she was beginning to count that amusement tame which Karslake did not share.

Mrs. Waring was undeniably a dear.  Sofia could hardly be grateful enough to the happy chance which had cast that lady for the role of her chaperone; lacking her guidance the girl must have been innocently guilty of many a gaucherie in ways new and strange to untried, faltering feet.  And it was to her alone that Sofia owed the slow but constant widening of her social horizon.  For Sybil Waring, it seemed, quite literally “knew everybody”; and Sofia soon learned to count it an off day when Sybil failed to present her protegee to the notice of somebody of position and influence.

Most of these persons were women with sounding names and the solid backing of much money conspicuously in evidence—­matrons of the younger and more giddy generation which was just then so busily engaged in providing material for the most hectic chapters of London’s post-war social history.  But Sofia was scarcely qualified to be critical or to guess that they were climbers equally with herself, and that if their footing had been of older establishment the name of Vassilyevski would have rung sinister echoes in their memories, deafening them to the rich allure inherent in the title of princess.