u
really as strong-willed and regal as the world says you are?"

"I don't know," replied Elisabeth; "I fancy it depends a good deal upon
whom I am talking to. I find as a rule it is a good plan to let a weak
man think you are obedient, and a strong man think you are wilful, if
you want men to find you interesting."

"And aren't you strong-minded enough to be indifferent to the fact as to
whether men find you interesting or the reverse?"

"Oh, dear, no! I am a very old-fashioned person, and I am proud of it.
I'd even rather be an old woman than a New Woman, if I were driven to be
one or the other. I'm not a bit modern, or _fin-de-siecle_; I still
believe in God and Man, and all the other comfortable and antiquated
beliefs."

"How nice of you! But I knew you would, though the world in general does
not give you credit for anything in the shape of warmth or tenderness;
it adores you, you know, but as a sort of glorious Snow-Queen, such as
Kay and Gerda ran after in dear Hans Andersen."

"I am quite aware of that, and I am afraid I don't much care; though it
seems a pity to have a thing and not to get the credit for it. I
sympathize with those women who have such lovely hair that nobody
believes that it was grown on the premises; my heart is similarly
misjudged."

"Lord Stonebridge was talking to me about you and your pictures the
other day, and he said you would be an ideal woman if only you had a
heart."

Elisabeth shrugged her shapely shoulders. "Then you can tell him that I
think he would be an ideal man if only he had a head; but you can't
expect one person to possess all the virtues or all the organs; now can
you?"

"I suppose not."

"Oh! do look at that woman in white muslin and forget-me-nots, with the
kittenish manner," exclaimed Elisabeth; "I can't stand kittens of over
fifty, can you? I have made all my friends promise that if ever they see
the faintest signs of approaching kittenness in me, as I advance in
years, they will have recourse without delay to the stable-bucket, which
is the natural end of kittens."

"Still, women should make the world think them young as long as
possible."

"But when we are kittenish we don't make the world think we are young;
we only make it think that we think we are young, which is quite a
different thing."

"I see," said Cecil, possessing himself of Elisabeth's fan. "Let me fan
you. I am afraid you find it rather hot here, but I doubt if we could
get a seat anywhe