Oddly, one great lady of his Court had heard a forthcoming work of this title spoken of by Percy Dacier, not a man to read silly fiction, unless there was meaning behind the lines:  that is, rich scandal of the aristocracy, diversified by stinging epigrams to the address of discernible personages.  She talked of the princess Egeria:  nay, laid her finger on the identical Princess.  Others followed her.  Dozens were soon flying with the torch:  a new work immediately to be published from the pen of the Duchess of Stars!—­And the Princess who lends her title to the book is a living portrait of the Princess of Highest Eminence, the Hope of all Civilization.—­Orders for copies of the princess Egeria reached the astonished publishers before the book was advertized.

Speaking to editors, Redworth complimented them with friendly intimations of the real authorship of the remarkable work appearing.  He used a certain penetrative mildness of tone in saying that ’he hoped the book would succeed’:  it deserved to; it was original; but the originality might tell against it.  All would depend upon a favourable launching of such a book.  ‘Mrs. Warwick?  Mrs. Warwick?’ said the most influential of editors, Mr. Marcus Tonans; ’what! that singularly handsome woman? . .  The Dannisburgh affair? . . .  She’s Whitmonby’s heroine.  If she writes as cleverly as she talks, her work is worth trumpeting.’  He promised to see that it went into good hands for the review, and a prompt review—­an essential point; none of your long digestions of the contents.

Diana’s indefatigable friend had fair assurances that her book would be noticed before it dropped dead to the public appetite for novelty.  He was anxious next, notwithstanding his admiration of the originality of the conception and the cleverness of the writing, lest the Literary Reviews should fail ‘to do it justice’:  he used the term; for if they wounded her, they would take the pleasure out of success; and he had always present to him that picture of the beloved woman kneeling at the fire-grate at The Crossways, which made the thought of her suffering any wound his personal anguish, so crucially sweet and saintly had her image then been stamped on him.  He bethought him, in consequence, while sitting in the House of Commons; engaged upon the affairs of the nation, and honestly engaged, for he was a vigilant worker—­that the Irish Secretary, Charles Raiser, with whom he stood in amicable relations, had an interest, to the extent of reputed ownership, in the chief of the Literary Reviews.  He saw Raiser on the benches, and marked him to speak for him.  Looking for him shortly afterward, the man was gone.  ’Off to the Opera, if he’s not too late for the drop,’ a neighbour said, smiling queerly, as though he ought to know; and then Redworth recollected current stories of Raiser’s fantastical devotion to the popular prima donna of the angelical voice.—­He hurried to the Opera and met the vomit, and heard in the crushroom how divine she had been that night.  A fellow member of the House, tolerably intimate with Raiser, informed him, between frightful stomachic roulades of her final aria, of the likeliest place where Raiser might be found when the Opera was over:  not at his Club, nor at his chambers:  on one of the bridges—­Westminster, he fancied.