'Puss, puss! Pretty puss!' laughed Marina. 'Cats have claws, my Lord Bill, and they scratch occasionally!'
With a swish of her silken skirts she darted past him into the supper-room, where she immediately became surrounded by a circle of young noodles, who evidently deemed it a peculiar glory and honour to be allowed to hand chicken salad to the gifted creature who nightly knocked her own nose with her foot in the presence of a crowded house. What was any art compared to this? What was science? What was learning? What was virtue? Nothing,—less than nothing! To have a shapely leg and know how to hit your nose with your foot, is every day proved to be the best way for a woman to have what is called a 'good time' in this world. She needn't be able to spell, she may drop her h's broadcast, she may 'booze' on brandy,—but so long as the nose is hit every night with the foot in an accurate and rhythmic manner, she will always have plenty of jewels and more male admirers than she can conveniently manage. For there is no degradation that can befall a woman which man will not excuse and condone; equally there is no elevation or honour she can win which he will not grudge and oppose with all the force of his nature! For man loves to hold a strangulation-grip on the neck of all creation, women included; and the idea that woman should suddenly wrench herself out of his grasp and refuse to be either trapped like a hare, hunted like a fox, or shot like a bird, is a strange, new and disagreeable experience for him. And very naturally he clings to the slave type of womanhood, and encourages the breed of those who are willing to become dancers and toys of his 'harem,' for, if all women were to rise to the height of their true and capable dignity, where should he go to for his so-called 'fun'?
Some thoughts of this kind were in Lord Carlyon's head as he threw on his opera-coat and prepared to leave the scene of revelry at the Dexters. The pale, noble face of Delicia haunted him; the disdain of her clear eyes still rankled in his soul; and he was actually indignant with her for what he considered 'that offensive virtue of hers,' which shamed him, and which had, for a moment at least, made 'the most distinguished Lady Brancewith' seem nothing but a common drab, daubed with paint and powder. Even as he thought of her thus, the fair and faithless Lily approached him, smiling, with a coaxing and penitent air.
'Still huffy?' she inquired sweetly. 'Poor, dear thing! Did it fret and fume and turn nasty?' She laughed, then added, 'Don't be cross, Billy! I was very rude to you just now—I'm sorry! See!' and she folded her hands with an appealing air. 'Drive home with me, will you? I'm so lonely! Brancewith's at Newmarket.'
Carlyon hesitated, looking at her. She was undoubtedly very lovely, despite her artificial flesh tints and distinctly dyed hair.
'All right!' he said with a stand-offish manner of coldness and indifference, 'I don't mind seeing you home.'
'How sweet and condescending of you!' and Lady Brancewith threw on her mantle gleaming with iridescent jewels and showered with perfumed lace. 'So good of you to bore yourself with my company!'
Her eyes flashed; she was in a dangerous mood, and Carlyon saw it. In silence he piloted her through the ranks of attendant flunkeys, and when her carriage came bowling up to the door assisted her into it.
'Good-night!' he then said, raising his hat ceremoniously.
Lily Brancewith turned white with sudden passion.