"

"Not altogether," Douglas answered, laughing.

"Well, it isn't altogether a laughing matter," Drexley said, grimly.
"I've got rid of my message. Now I'm going to speak to you on my own
account. You're young and you haven't seen much of life. You are no
more capable of understanding a woman like Emily de Reuss than you are
of talking Hindustanee. For the matter of that neither am I, nor any of
us. Any ordinary words which I could use about her must sound
ridiculous because of their inadequacy. However, to make myself
understood I must try. She is not only a beautiful woman of unlimited
wealth and social position, but she has, when she chooses to use them,
the most extraordinary powers of attracting people to her. She might
exercise these gifts upon men of her own social rank who are, as a rule,
of slighter character, and whose experience of the best of her sex is of
course larger than ours. She prefers, however, to stoop into another
world for her victims--into our world."

"Why victims?" Douglas asked. "Isn't that rather an extreme view of the
case?"

"It is a mild view," Drexley said. "I will justify it afterwards. In
the first place, I believe that she has genuine literary tastes, and a
delight for the original in any shape or form. The men in her own rank
of life would neither afford her any pleasure nor would they be for a
moment content with the return which she is prepared to offer for their
devotion. So she has chosen her victims, or, as you would say, friends,
from amongst our men--at least with a more robust virility and more
limited expectation. You will admit that so far I have spoken without
bias."

"In the main, yes," Douglas answered.

"There are women," Drexley said, "who are very beautiful and very
attractive, who admit at times to their friendship men with whom
anything but friendship would be impossible, and who contrive to
insinuate in some subtle way that their personality is for themselves
alone, or for some other chosen one. How it's done, I don't know, but I
believe there are plenty of women who do know, and who are able to
preserve unbroken friendships with men who, but for the exercise of that
gift, must inevitably fall in love with them. And there are also
women," Drexley continued, with voice not quite so steady, "who have the
opposite gift, who are absolutely heartless, wholly unscrupulous, as
cold as adders, and who are continually promising with their eyes, and
lips, and their cu