After reading Two Women (Methuen) I hope to avoid "girl bachelors" for a very long time. They are, Mr. Max Pemberton says, curious products of the century, and I am not disposed to contradict him. In Gertrude Wynne's flat, "Debussy's music was open upon a miniature grand, and a volume of Anatola France stood upon the marquetry table near the fireplace;" but in Doris Holt's room "an open piano had a song from a revue upon it, while a translation of one of Paul de Koch's novels lay upon the window-seat." That ought to give the key to their characters, but if it does not, let me boldly add that Gertrude was clever and sedate, while Doris was a queen of minxes. Doris, indeed, got herself into a pretty mess with a vulgar philanderer called Lord Raymore, and was justly punished by marrying him. This Raymore man despised politics, but all the same he had made up his mind to "win a place in the Tory Cabinet, and to pose there as the new Disraeli," which makes me think that Mr. Pemberton is occasionally funnier than he means to be. Not until we get away from the girl bachelors and are off on a spying expedition to Germany with Captain Ainsworth does the story grip. Then, however, things begin to happen, and the flight from the German fortress, in which Ainsworth had been imprisoned, is really thrilling. In his next book I hope Mr. Pemberton will leave "curious products" alone and let us have an extra dose of adventure to make up for the meagre allowance contained in Two Women.
"It is far more important to have the right style in the country than in town. Men don't want their women to wear something that will frighten the birds away. Nothing cheap or badly cut ought ever to be worn in the country."
Vanity Fair and Hearth & Home.
The birds: "We really cannot stay to be shot to-day, the women are wearing such cheap clothes."
Close of an essay by a small girl on Charles I.:—"Had Charles the First been more strong minded and sincere, he would have been a better king; as it was, he was more suited for a clergyman."