e arbiters of their own destinies.

"Take the stage as an illustration. Once the popularity of women who
made it their profession was due partly to glamour, partly because
that art drew to it and concentrated the very best-looking among us.
But it's something else now that attracts men; it's the attraction of
women who are doing something--clever, experienced, interesting, girls
who know how to take care of themselves and who are not afraid to give
to men a frank and gay companionship outside those conventional
limits which circumscribe us."

Elorn nodded.

"It's quite true," said Leila. "The independent professional girl
to-day, whatever art or business engages her, is the paramount
attraction to men.

"A few do sneak back to us after a jolly caper in the open--a few
timid ones, or snobs of sorts--thrifty, perhaps, or otherwise
material, or cautious. But that's about all we get as husbands in
these devilish days of general feminine _bouleversement_. And it's a
sad and instructive fact, Elorn. But there seems to be nothing to do
about it."

Elorn said musingly: "The main thing seems to be that men admire a
girl's effort to get somewhere--when she happens to be good-looking."

"It's a cynical fact, dear; they certainly do. And now that they
realise they have to marry these girls if they want them--why, they
do."

Elorn dissected her ice. "You know Stanley Wardner," she remarked.

"Mortimer Wardner's son?"

Elorn nodded. "He became a queer kind of sculptor. I think it is
called a Concentrationist. Well, he's concentrated for life, now."

"Whom did he marry?" asked Leila, laughing.

"A girl named Questa Terrett. You never heard of her, did you?"

"No. And I can imagine the moans and groans of the Mortimer
Wardners."

"I have heard so. She lives--_they_ live now, together, in Abdingdon
Square, where she possesses a studio and nearly a dozen West Highland
terriers."

"What else does she do?" inquired Leila, still laughing.

"She writes cleverly when she needs an income; otherwise, she produces
obscure poems with malice aforethought, and laughs in her sleeve, they
say, when the precious-minded rave."

Leila reverted to Estridge:

"I had no idea he was married," she said. "Palla Dumont introduced his
widow to me the other day--a most superb and beautiful creature. But,
oh dear I--can you fancy her having once served as a girl-soldier in
the Russian Battalion of Death!"

The slightest shadow crossed Elo