. I
even feel a chivalry towards the woman in myself. She claims my pity
and my care in a quite new way."

"So much the better," Mr. Quayle observed, outwardly discreetly urbane,
inwardly almost riotously jubilant.

"Ah! wait a minute," she repeated. Her tone changed, sobered. "I don't
want to spread myself, but you know I can meet men pretty well on their
own ground. I could shoot and fish as well as most of you, only that I
don't think it right to take life except to provide food, or in
self-defense. There's not so much happiness going that one's justified
in cutting any of it short. Even a jack-snipe may have his little
affairs of the heart, and a cock-salmon his gamble. But I can ride as
straight as you can. I can break any horse to harness you choose to put
me behind. I can sail a boat and handle an axe. I can turn my hand to
most practical things--except a needle. I own I always have hated a
needle worse--well, worse than the devil! And I can organise, and can
speak fairly well, and manage business affairs tidily. And have I not
even been known--low be it spoken--to beat you at lawn tennis, and Lord
Shotover at billiards?"

"And to overthrow my most Socratic father in argument. And outwit my
sister Louisa in diplomacy--_vide_ our poor, dear Dickie Calmady's
broken engagement, and the excellent, scatter-brain Decies' marriage."

"But Lady Constance is happy?" Honoria put in hastily.

"Blissful, positively blissful, and with twins too! Think of
it!--Decies is blissful also. His sense of humour has deteriorated
since his marriage, from constant association with good, little Connie
who was never distinguished for ready perception of a joke. He regards
those small, simultaneous replicas of himself with unqualified
complacency, which shows his appreciation of comedy must be a bit
blunted."

"I wonder if it does?" Miss St. Quentin observed reflectively. Whereat
Mr. Quayle permitted himself a sound as nearly approaching a chuckle as
was possible to so superior a person.

"A thousand pardons," he murmured, "but really, dear lady, you are so
very much off on the other tack."

"Am I?" Miss St. Quentin said. "Well, you see--to go back to my
demonstration--I've none of the quarrel with your side of things most
women have, because I'm not shut out from it, and so I don't envy you.
I can amuse and interest myself on your lines. And therefore I can
afford to be very considerate and tender of the woman in me. I grow
mor