t mean to say that a woman
should not do her best for a man whom she knows to be maligned? You
don't suggest that she should stand silently to one side while people
are saying what's false about him?"

"I say that it's unwise in Philistia; though I admit that it is of the
greatest advantage to the man, for people at once cease maligning him
and take to maligning her."

"If she is any sort of a woman she will not mind that, however unjust
it may be. In this case, however, I don't think there is much risk: even
the most unscrupulous person could hardly say that--that----"

"That we were becoming Herbert Courtland's champions, because we were in
love with him?"

"Well, I don't know. Wasn't that what you meant to suggest people would
say of a woman who became a man's champion?"

"Something in that way. How straightforwardly you speak out what's on
your mind!"

"Oh, I'm a girl of to-day. I have got over all those absurd affectations
of childishness which used to be thought feminine long ago. The gambols
of the kitten were once thought the most attractive thing on earth, and
they are very interesting: but for the full-grown cat to pretend that it
is perfectly happy with a ball of worsted, when all the time it has its
heart set on a real mouse, is nonsense."

"That is an allegory, a subtle parable, Phyllis. But I fancy I can
interpret it. You are quite right. Men know that we, the full-grown
cats, take no interest in the ravelings of wool as mediums of
diversion--that we have our hearts set on mice. Oh, yes! it is much
better to be straightforward in our speech--it is even sometimes
better to be quite straight in our ways as well. It usually prevents
misunderstanding. There is scarcely a subject that women may not talk
about to men in the most direct way, nowadays. But about the question of
championship----"

Here the door of the room was thrown open and Mr. Herbert Courtland was
announced.

"I quite forgot to mention that Mr. Courtland was lunching with us
to-day, Phyllis," said Ella, while shaking hands with her visitor. "Now
you will have a chance of getting the slave-dealer's account of the
whole business. Are you a slave-dealer, Bertie? If so, why don't you
wear the usual broad-leaved hat of your order?"

"It is I who am the enslaved one," said Mr. Courtland, laying his hand
to the left of the buttons of his white waistcoat and bowing the bow of
the early years of the century, with a glance at each lady.

"