women
like self-opinionated men."

"I suppose they do."

"And after all," Elisabeth went on, "if one goes in for a distinguished
husband, one must pay the price for the article. It is absurd to shoot
big game, and then expect to carry it home in a market-basket."

"Still it annoys you when men say the same of you, and suggest that an
ordinary lump of sugar would have sweetened Antony's vinegar more
successfully than did Cleopatra's pearl. Your conversation and my art
have exhausted themselves to prove that this masculine imagination is a
delusion and a snare; yet the principle must be the same in both cases."

"Not at all; woman's greatness is of her life a thing apart: 'tis man's
whole existence."

"Do you think so?" asked Cecil, with that tender look of his which
expressed so much and meant so little. "You don't know how cold a man
feels when his heart is empty."

"Paul Seaton nearly wrecked his career at the outset by writing a very
foolish and indiscreet book called Shams and Shadows; it was just a
toss-up whether he would ever get over it; but he did, and now people
have pretty nearly forgotten it," continued Elisabeth, who had never
heard the truth concerning Isabel Carnaby.

"Who is that fat, merry woman coming in now?"

"That is Lady Silverhampton; and the man she is laughing with is Lord
Robert Thistletown. That lovely girl on the other side of him is his
wife. Isn't she exquisite?"

"She is indeed--a most beautiful creature. Now if Lord Wrexham had
broken his heart over her, I could have understood and almost commended
him."

"Well, but he didn't, you see. There is nothing more remarkable than the
sort of woman that breaks men's hearts--except the sort of men that
break women's."

"I fancy that the breakableness is in the nature of the heart itself,
and not of the iconoclast," said Cecil.

Elisabeth looked up quickly. "Oh! I don't. I think that the person who
breaks the heart of another person must have an immense capacity for
commanding love."

"Not at all; the person whose heart is broken has an immense capacity
for feeling love. Take your Lord Wrexham, for instance: it was not
because Miss Carnaby was strong, but because he was strong, that his
heart was broken in the encounter between them. You can see that in
their faces."

"I don't agree with you. It was because she was more lovable than
loving--at least, as far as he was concerned--that the catastrophe
happened. A less vivid personal