d all the women another.'

His idly curious look travelled up and down, and returned to her
unenlightened.

'All the women,' she said, 'are trying with might and main to amuse the
men, and all the men are more or less permitting the women to succeed.'

'I'm sorry,' he said, laughing, 'to hear of your being so over-worked.'

'Oh, _you_ make it easy. And yet'--she caught the gratitude away from
her voice--'I suppose I should have said something like that, even if
I'd been talking to my other neighbour.'

Borrodaile's look went again from one couple to another, for, as usual
in England, the talk was all _tete-a-tete_. The result of his inspection
seemed not to lend itself to her mood.

'I can't speak for others, but for myself, I'm always conscious of
wanting to be agreeable when I'm with you. I'm sorry'--he was speaking
in the usual half-genial, half-jeering tone--'very sorry, if I succeed
so ill.'

'I've already admitted that with _me_ you succeed to admiration. But you
only try because it's easy.'

'Oh!' he laughed.

'You rather like talking to me, you know. Now, can you lay your hand on
your heart----'

'And deny it? Never!'

'Can you lay your hand on your heart, and say you've tried as hard to
entertain your other neighbour as I have to keep mine going?'

'Ah, well, we men aren't as good at it. After all, it's rather the
woman's "part," isn't it?'

'The art of pleasing? I suppose it is--but it's rather a Geisha view of
life, don't you think?'

'Not at all; rightly viewed, it's a woman's privilege--her natural
function.'

'Then the brutes are nobler than we.'

Wondering, he glanced at her. The face was wholly reassuring, but he
said, with a faint uneasiness--

'If it weren't you, I'd say that sounds a little bitter.'

'Oh, no,' she laughed. 'I was only thinking about the lion's mane and
the male bird's crest, and what the natural history bores say they're
for.'

CHAPTER III

The darkness and the quiet of Vida Levering's bedroom were rudely
dispelled at a punctual eight each morning by the entrance of a gaunt
middle-aged female.

It was this person's unvarying custom to fling back the heavy curtains,
as though it gratified some strong recurrent need in her, to hear brass
rings run squealing along a bar; as if she counted that day lost which
was not well begun--by shooting the blinds up with a clatter and a bang!

The harsh ceremonial served as a sort of setting of the pace, or a
me