l the history. A powerful wing of imagination,
strong as the flappers of the great Roc of Arabian story, is needed to
lift the known physical woman even a very little way up into azure
heavens. It is far easier to take a snap-shot at the psychic, and tumble
her down from her fictitious heights to earth. The mixing of the two make
nonsense of her. She was created to attract the man, for an excellent
purpose in the main. We behold her at work incessantly. One is a fish to
her hook; another a moth to her light. By the various arts at her
disposal she will have us, unless early in life we tear away the
creature's coloured gauzes and penetrate to her absurdly simple
mechanism. That done, we may, if we please, dominate her. High priests of
every religion have successively denounced her as the chief enemy. To
subdue and bid her minister to our satisfaction is therefore a right
employment of man's unperverted superior strength. Of course, we keep to
ourselves the woman we prefer; but we have to beware of an uxorious
preference, or we are likely to resemble the Irishman with his wolf, and
dance imprisoned in the hug of our captive.

For it is the creature's characteristic to be lastingly awake, in her
moments of utmost slavishness most keenly awake to the chances of the
snaring of the stronger. Be on guard, then. Lord Ormont had been on guard
then and always: his instinct of commandership kept him on guard. He was
on guard now when his Aminta played, not the indignant and the frozen,
but the genially indifferent. She did it well, he admitted.

Had it been the indignant she played, he might have stooped to cajole the
handsome queen of gypsies she was, without acknowledgement of her right
to complain. Feeling that he was about to be generous, he shrugged. He
meant to speak in deeds.

Lady Charlotte's house was at the distance of a stroller's half-hour
across Hyde Park westward from his own. Thither he walked, a few minutes
after noon, prepared for cattishness. He could fancy that he had hitherto
postponed the visit rather on her account, considering that he would have
to crush her if she humped and spat, and he hoped to be allowed to do it
gently. There would certainly be a scene.

Lady Charlotte was at home.

'Always at home to you, Rowsley, at any hour. Mr. Eglett has driven down
to the City. There 's a doctor in a square there's got a reputation for
treating weak children, and he has taken down your grand-nephew Bobby to
b