ntroductions, though introductions have been known to create a
reputation, lasting at any rate for a few months, without any real
ability. Lettice advanced rapidly in the estimation of those whose good
opinion was worth having. She soon began to discriminate between the
people who were worth cultivating and the people who were not. If a
person were sincere and straightforward, could say what he meant and say
it with point and vivacity, or if he possessed for her those vaguely
attractive and stimulating qualities which draw people together without
their exactly knowing why (probably through some correlation of
temperament), Lettice would feel this person was good to know, whether
the world approved her choice of friends or not. And when she wanted to
know man or woman, she exerted herself to please--mainly by showing that
she herself was pleased. She did not exactly flatter--she was never
insincere--but it amounted to much the same thing as flattery. She
listened eagerly; her interest was manifested in her face, her attitude,
her answers. In fact she was her absolute self, without reserve and
without fence. No wonder that she incurred the jealousy of half the
women in her set.

But this is how an intellectual woman can best please a man who has
passed the childish age, when he only cared for human dolls and dolls'
houses. She must carry her intellect about with her, like a brave
costume--dressing, of course, with taste and harmony--she must not be
slow to admire the intellectual costume of others, if she wants her own
to be admired; she must be subtle enough at the same time to forget that
she is dressed at all, and yet never for a moment forget that her
companion may have no soul or heart except in his dress. If he has, it
is for him to prove it, not for her to assume it.

It was because Lettice had this art of intellectual intercourse, and
because she exercised it in a perfectly natural and artless manner, that
she charmed so many of those who made her acquaintance, and that they
rarely paused to consider whether she was prettier or plainer, taller or
shorter, more or less prepossessing, than the women who surrounded her.

In due time she found herself welcomed at the houses of those dear and
estimable ladies, who--generally old and childless themselves--love to
gather round them the young and clever acolytes of literature and art,
the enthusiastic devotees of science, the generous apprentices of
constructive politic