to
the newly emancipated schoolboy going out to seek employment, the male
element was, with scarcely an exception, her collective slave. Among the
women, of course, her rule was less complete; those who were furthest
from all possibility of rivalling her in attractiveness of person or
charm of manner being, of course, the most virulent in their jealousy
and the expression thereof. Lilith, however, cared nothing for this, or,
if she did, gave no sign. She was never bitter, even towards those whom
she knew to be among her worst detractors, never spiteful. She was not
faultless, not by any means, but her failings did not lie in the
direction of littleness. But she always seemed bright and happy, and
full of life--too much so, thought more than one of her perfervid
adorers, who would fain have monopolized her.

She was in the mid-twenties--that age when the egotism and rather narrow
enthusiasms and prejudices of the girl shade off into the graciousness
and _savoir-vivre_ of womanhood. She could look back on more than one
foolishness, from whose results she had providentially escaped, with an
uneasy shudder, followed by a heartfelt thankfulness, and a sense of
having not only learnt but profited by experience, which sense enlarged
her mind and her sympathies, and imparted to her demeanour a
self-possession and serenity beyond her years.

We said the male element, with scarce an exception, was her collective
slave. Such an exception was Laurence Stanninghame.

Without being a misogynist, he had no great opinion of women. He owned
they might be delightful--frequently were--up to a certain point, and
this was the point at which you began to take them seriously. But to
treat any one of them as though the sun had ceased to shine because her
presence was withdrawn, struck him as sheer insanity. It might be all
right for youngsters like Holmes or Swaynston, the licensed fool of the
smoking room, or Dyson, to whose senile enthusiasm for the mazy rout we
have heard allusion made--the latter on the principle of "no fool like
an old fool"; but not for him--not for a man in the matured vigour of
his physical and mental powers. Wherefore, when forced himself to
acknowledge the spell which Lilith had begun to weave around him, he
unhesitatingly set it down to impaired nerves.

As a direct result, he avoided the cause. It was a cowardly course of
action, he told himself. He was afraid of her. If she could throw the
magic of her sorcery