ok younger than they are and the sons
older. It's the most comic relationship, and breeds shyness as the West
African climate breeds fever."

"I know the whole of the West African coast by heart," declared Miss
Burns, wagging her head, and moving her brown hands nervously among her
knives and forks. "And I never caught anything there."

"Not even a husband," murmured Mrs. Wolfstein to Lady Manby.

"In fact, I never felt better in my life than I did at Old Calabar,"
continued Miss Burns. "But there my mind was occupied. I was studying
the habits of alligators."

"They're very bad, aren't they?" asked Lady Manby, in a tone of earnest
inquiry.

"I prefer to study the habits of men," said Sally Perceval, who was
always surrounded by a troup of young racing men and athletes, who
admired her swimming feats.

"Men are very disappointing, I think," observed Mrs. Trent. "They are
like a lot of beads all threaded on one string."

"And what's the string?" asked Sally Perceval.

"Vanity. Men are far vainer than we are. Their indifference to the
little arts we practise shows it. A woman whose head is bald covers it
with a wig. Without a wig she would feel that she was an outcast totally
powerless to attract. But a bald-headed man has no idea of diffidence.
He does not bother about a wig because he expects to be adored without
one."

"And the worst of it is that he is adored," said Mrs. Wolfstein. "Look
at my passion for Henry."

They began to talk about their husbands. Lady Holme did not join in. She
and Pimpernel Schley were very silent members of the party. Even Miss
Burns, who was--so she said--a spinster by conviction not by
necessity, plunged into the husband question, and gave some very daring
illustrations of the marriage customs of certain heathen tribes.

Pimpernel Schley hardly spoke at all. When someone, turning to her,
asked her what she thought about the subject under discussion, she
lifted her pale eyes and said, with the choir-boy drawl:

"I've got no husband and never had one, so I guess I'm no kind of a
judge."

"I guess she's a judge of other women's husbands, though," said Mrs.
Wolfstein to Lady Cardington. "That child is going to devastate London."

Now and then Lady Holme glanced towards Sir Donald and his son. They
seemed as untalkative as she was. Sir Donald kept on looking towards
Mrs. Wolfstein's table. So did Leo. But whereas Leo Ulford's eyes were
fixed on Pimpernel Schley, Sir Donald's m