mile.

"For example?"

"In human nature a little bit, for example. In the possibility of a
woman being something else than a drawing-room peacock, or worse. Do you
think she could make you believe that it is possible for a woman to be
noble-minded, unselfish, truth-speaking, modest, and loyal-hearted?"

"I presume you are describing Natalie Lind herself."

"Oh," said his friend, with a quick surprise, "then you admit there may
be an exception, after all? You do not condemn the whole race of them
now, as being incapable of even understanding what frank dealing is, or
honor, or justice, or anything beyond their own vain and selfish
caprices?"

George Brand went to the window.

"Perhaps," said he, "my experience of women has been unfortunate,
unusual. I have not had much chance, especially of late years, of
studying them in their quiet domestic spheres. But otherwise I suppose
my experience is not unusual. Every man begins his life, in his salad
days, by believing the world to be a very fine thing, and women
particularly to be very wonderful creatures--angels, in short, of
goodness, and mercy, and truth, and all the rest of it. Then, judging by
what I have seen and heard, I should say that about nineteen men out of
twenty get a regular facer--just at the most sensitive period of their
life; and then they suddenly believe that women are devils, and the
world a delusion. It is bad logic; but they are not in a mood for
reason. By-and-by the process of recovery begins: with some short, with
others long. But the spring-time of belief, and hope, and rejoicing--I
doubt whether that ever comes back."

He spoke without any bitterness. If the facts of the world were so, they
had to be accepted.

"I swallowed my dose of experience a good many years ago," he continued,
"but I haven't got it out of my blood yet. However, I will admit to you
the possibility of there being a few women like Natalie Lind."

"Well, this is better, at all events," Lord Evelyn said, cheerfully.

"Beauty, of course, is a dazzling and dangerous thing," Brand said; "for
a man always wants to believe that fine eyes and a sweet voice have a
sweet soul behind them. And very often he finds behind them something in
the shape of a soul that a dog or a cat would be ashamed to own. But as
for Natalie Lind, I don't think one can be deceived. She shows too much.
She vibrates too quickly--too inadvertently--to little chance touches. I
did suspect her, I will co