troubled and
disappointed, regarding an aching gap to the left of his chair, a gap
upon which a pathetic little card bearing Lady Harman's name still lay
obliquely.

Naturally the talk tended to centre upon the Harmans. And naturally Lady
Beach-Mandarin was very bold and outspoken and called Sir Isaac quite a
number of vivid things. She also aired her views of the marriage of the
future, which involved a very stringent treatment of husbands indeed.
"Half his property and half his income," said Lady Beach-Mandarin,
"paid into her separate banking account."

"But," protested Mr. Brumley, "would men marry under those conditions?"

"Men will marry anyhow," said Lady Beach-Mandarin, "under _any_
conditions."

"Exactly Sir Joshua's opinion," said Lady Viping.

All the ladies at the table concurred and only one cheerful bachelor
barrister dissented. The other men became gloomy and betrayed a distaste
for this general question. Even Mr. Brumley felt a curious faint terror
and had for a moment a glimpse of the possibilities that might lie
behind the Vote. Lady Beach-Mandarin went bouncing back to the
particular instance. At present, she said, witness Lady Harman, women
were slaves, pampered slaves if you will, but slaves. As things were now
there was nothing to keep a man from locking up his wife, opening all
her letters, dressing her in sack-cloth, separating her from her
children. Most men, of course, didn't do such things, they were amenable
to public opinion, but Sir Isaac was a jealous little Ogre. He was a
gnome who had carried off a princess....

She threw out projects for assailing the Ogre. She would descend
to-morrow morning upon the Putney house, a living flamboyant writ of
Habeas Corpus. Mr. Brumley, who had been putting two and two together,
was abruptly moved to tell of the sale of Black Strand. "They may be
there," he said.

"He's carried her off," cried Lady Beach-Mandarin on a top note. "It
might be the eighteenth century for all he cares. But if it's Black
Strand,--I'll go to Black Strand...."

But she had to talk about it for a week before she actually made her
raid, and then, with an instinctive need for an audience, she took with
her a certain Miss Garradice, one of those mute, emotional nervous
spinsters who drift detachedly, with quick sudden movements, glittering
eyeglasses, and a pent-up imminent look, about our social system. There
is something about this type of womanhood--it is hard to say-