resh young girl tied to a worn-out old man."'

'_Oh!_' remarked Lady Whyteleafe, genuinely shocked. 'And you said that
to----'

Mrs. Freddy nodded with melancholy significance. 'Even when Vida said,
"It seems to do well enough sometimes," _still_ I never never remembered
the Fox-Moore story! And I went on about it being a miracle when it
turned out even tolerably--and, oh, Heaven forgive me! I grew eloquent!'

'It's your passion for making speeches,' said Mr. Freddy.

At which, accountably to Lady Whyteleafe, Mrs. Freddy blushed and
stumbled in this particular 'speech.'

'I know, I know,' she said, carrying it off with an air of comic
contrition. 'I even said, "There's a modesty in nature that it isn't
wise to overstep" (I'd forgotten some people think speech-making comes
under that head). "It's been realized," I said--yes, rushing on my
doom!--"it's been realized up to now only in the usual one-sided
way--discouraging boys from marrying women old enough to be their
mothers. But dear, blundering, fatuous man"'--she smiled into her
husband's pleasantly mocking face--'"_he_ thinks," I said, "at _any_ age
he's a fit mate for a fresh young creature in her teens. If they only
knew--the dreadful old ogres!" Yes, I said that. I piled it on--oh, I
stuck at nothing! "The men think an ugly old woman monopolizes all the
opportunities humanity offers for repulsiveness. But there's nothing on
the face of the earth as hideous," I said, "as an ugly old man. Doesn't
it stand to reason? He's bound to go greater lengths than any woman can
aspire to. There's more of him to _be_ ugly, isn't there? I appealed to
them--everything about him is bigger, coarser--he's much less human,"
says I, "and _much_ more like a dreadful old monkey." I raised my
wretched eyes, and there, not three feet away, was the aged husband of
the Fox-Moore woman ogling Hermione Heriot! Oh, let me die!' Mrs. Freddy
leaned against the blue-grey sofa for a moment and half closed her
pretty eyes. The next instant she was running gaily across the room to
welcome Richard Farnborough and Captain Beeching.

* * * * *

'I always know,' said Lord Borrodaile, glancing over the banisters as he
and Vida went down--'I always know the kind of party it's going to be
when I see--certain people. Don't you?'

'I know who you mean,' Vida whispered back, her eyes on Mrs. Graham
Townley's aggressively high-piled hair towering over the bald pate of
th