pink pearls, and Mechlin, and the beau sexe's scornful
repudiation, not alone of a faded silk, like poor Enid's, but of the
handsomest dress going, if it's damned by being "seen twice," that I
have ever vowed that, plaise a Dieu, I will never marry, and with
heaven's help will keep the vow better than I might most probably keep
the matrimonial ones if I took them. Yet if ever I saw a woman for whom
I could have fancied a man's committing that semisuicidal act, that
woman was Beatrice Boville. Not for her beauty, for, except one of the
loveliest figures and a pair of the most glorious eyes, she did not
claim much; not for her money, for she had none; not for her birth, for
on one side that was somewhat obscure; but for _herself_; and had I ever
tried the herculean task of dressing anybody beautifully and keeping
anybody true, it should have been she, but for the fact that when I knew
her first she was engaged to my cousin Earlscourt. We had none of us
ever dreamt he would marry, for he had been sworn to political life so
long, given over so utterly to the battle-ground of St. Stephen's and
the intrigues of Downing Street, that the ladies of our house were
sorely wrathful when they heard that he had at last fallen in love and
proposed to Beatrice Boville, who, though she was Lady Mechlin's niece,
was the daughter of a West Indian who had married her mother, broken her
heart, spent her money, deserted her, and never been heard of since; the
more wrathful as they had no help for themselves, and were obliged to be
contented with distinguishing her with refreshing appellations of a
"very clever schemer," evidently a "perfect intrigante," and similar
epithets with which their sex is driven for consolation under such
trying circumstances. It's a certain amount of relief to us to call a
man who has cut us down in a race "a stupid owl; very little in him!"
but it is mild gratification to that enjoyed by ladies when they
retaliate for injury done them by that delightful bonbon of a sentence,
"No doubt a most artful person!" You see it conveys so much and proves
three things in one--their own artlessness, their enemy's worthlessness,
and their victim's folly. Being with Earlscourt at the time of his
"singularly unwise, step," as they phrased it, I knew that he wasn't
trapped in any way, and that he was loved irrespectively of his social
rank; but where was the good of telling that to deeply-injured and
perforce silenced ladies? "They