bin Pierce that she thought there was something about Leo Ulford
that was like her husband, and when she talked to him she found the
resemblance even greater than she had supposed.

Lord Holme and Leo Ulford were of a similar type. Both were strong,
healthy, sensual, slangy, audacious in a dull kind of fashion--Lady
Holme did not call it dull--serenely and perpetually intent upon having
everything their own way in life. Both lived for the body and ignored
the soul, as they would have ignored a man with a fine brain, a
passionate heart, a narrow chest and undeveloped muscles. Such a man
they would have summed up as "a rotter." If they ever thought of the
soul at all, it was probably under some such comprehensive name. Both
had the same simple and blatant aim in life, an aim which governed all
their actions and was the generator of most of their thoughts. This
aim, expressed in their own terse language, was "to do themselves
jolly well." Both had, so far, succeeded in their ambition. Both were,
consequently, profoundly convinced of their own cleverness. Intellectual
conceit--the conceit of the brain--is as nothing to physical
conceit--the conceit of the body. Acute intelligence is always
capable of uneasiness, can always make room for a doubt. But the
self-satisfaction of the little-brained and big-muscled man who has
never had a rebuff or a day's illness is cased in triple brass. Lady
Holme knew this self-satisfaction well. She had seen it staring out of
her husband's big brown eyes. She saw it now in the boyish eyes of Leo
Ulford. She was at home with it and rather liked it. In truth, it had
at least one merit--from the woman's point of view--it was decisively
masculine.

Whether Leo Ulford was, or was not, a blackguard; as Mrs. Trent had
declared, did not matter to her. Three-quarters of the men she knew were
blackguards according to the pinched ideas of Little Peddlington; and
Mrs. Trent might originally have issued from there.

She got on easily with Leo Ulford because she was experienced in the
treatment of his type. She knew exactly what to do with it; how to lead
it on, how to fend it off, how to throw cold water on its enterprise
without dashing it too greatly, how to banish any little, sulky
cloud that might appear on the brassy horizon without seeming to be
solicitous.

The type is amazingly familiar to the woman of the London world. She can
recognize it at a glance, and can send it in its armchair canter r