ually declares that black women have much better
figures than we have," she says, an hour later, to Leila Faversham.

"Black women!" exclaims that lady, in unspeakable horror.

"Well, Hindoos: it is the same thing," says Lady Usk with that ignorance
of her Indian fellow-subjects which is characteristic of English
society, from the highest strata to the lowest.

"Oh, he is always so odd, you know," says Mrs. Faversham, as of a person
whom it is hopeless even to discuss. Brandolin is indeed so odd that he
has never perceived her own attractions. What can seem odder to a pretty
woman than that?

Leila Faversham tells Lady Dawlish ten minutes later that Brandolin has
confessed that he only likes black women. "Isn't it horrid? He actually
has numbers of them down in Warwickshire, just as he keeps the Indian
animals and the African birds."

"How very shocking!" says Lady Dawlish. "But I dare say it is very
economical: they only eat a spoonful of rice and wear a yard of calico,
you know, and, as he is poor, that must suit him."

Lady Dawlish tells this fact to Nina Curzon, adding various
embellishments of her fancy; Mrs. Curzon thinks the notion new and
amusing; she writes of it that morning to a journal of society which she
occasionally honors with news of her world, not from want of the
editor's fee, but from the amusement it affords her to destroy the
characters of her acquaintances. The journal will immediately, she
knows, produce a mysterious but sensational paragraph regarding the
black women in Warwickshire, or some article headed "An Hereditary
Legislature at Home." Brandolin is a person whom it is perfectly safe to
libel: he is very indolent, very contemptuous, and he never by any
chance reads a newspaper.

"An extremely interesting woman," muses Brandolin that evening, as he
dresses for dinner. "Interesting, and moreover with something original,
something mysterious and suggestive, in her. Despite Lady Usk, there is
a difference still in different nationalities. I could still swear to an
Englishwoman anywhere, if I only saw the back of her head and her
shoulders. No Englishwoman could have the delicious languor of Madame
Sabaroff's movements."

She interests him; he decides to stay on at Surrenden.

When he sees her at dinner he is still more favorably impressed.

Her figure is superb, and her sleeveless gown shows the beauty of her
bust and arms; she has a flat band of diamonds worn between the elbow
and