when
there's no married woman or widow in sight. And, I say, it can't be true
you've gone in for that crazy Radicalism? There's nothing to be
gained by it, you know; the women hate it! A married blonde of
five-and-twenty's the Venus of them all. Mind you, I don't forget that
Mrs. Wardour-Devereux is a thorough-paced brunette; but, upon my honour,
I'd bet on Cissy Halkett at forty. "A dark eye in woman," if you like,
but blue and auburn drive it into a corner.'

Lord Palmet concluded by asking Beauchamp what he was doing and whither
going.

Beauchamp proposed to him maliciously, as one of our hereditary
legislators, to come and see something of canvassing. Lord Palmet had
no objection. 'Capital opportunity for a review of their women,' he
remarked.

'I map the places for pretty women in England; some parts of Norfolk,
and a spot or two in Cumberland and Wales, and the island over there, I
know thoroughly. Those Jutes have turned out some splendid fair women.
Devonshire's worth a tour. My man Davis is in charge of my team, and
he drives to Itchincope from Washwater station. I am independent; I 'll
have an hour with you. Do you think much of the women here?'

Beauchamp had not noticed them.

Palmet observed that he should not have noticed anything else.

'But you are qualifying for the Upper House,' Beauchamp said in the tone
of an encomium.

Palmet accepted the statement. 'Though I shall never care to figure
before peeresses,' he said. 'I can't tell you why. There's a heavy
sprinkling of the old bird among them. It isn't that. There's too much
plumage; I think it must be that. A cloud of millinery shoots me off a
mile from a woman. In my opinion, witches are the only ones for wearing
jewels without chilling the feminine atmosphere about them. Fellows
think differently.' Lord Palmet waved a hand expressive of purely
amiable tolerance, for this question upon the most important topic of
human affairs was deep, and no judgement should be hasty in settling it.
'I'm peculiar,' he resumed. 'A rose and a string of pearls: a woman who
goes beyond that's in danger of petrifying herself and her fellow man.
Two women in Paris, last winter, set us on fire with pale thin gold
ornaments--neck, wrists, ears, ruche, skirts, all in a flutter, and so
were you. But you felt witchcraft. "The magical Orient," Vivian Ducie
called the blonde, and the dark beauty, "Young Endor."'

'Her name?' said Beauchamp.

'A marquise; I forget he