She tried, as women will, to answer him with arguments, and failed,
as women will fail. She was accustomed to lay down the law a la
Madame de Stael, to savants and non-savants and be heard with
reverence, as a woman should be. But poor truth-seeking Lancelot
did not see what sex had to do with logic; he flew at her as if she
had been a very barrister, and hunted her mercilessly up and down
through all sorts of charming sophisms, as she begged the question,
and shifted her ground, as thoroughly right in her conclusion as she
was wrong in her reasoning, till she grew quite confused and
pettish.--And then Lancelot suddenly shrank into his shell, claws
and all, like an affrighted soldier-crab, hung down his head, and
stammered out some incoherencies,--'N-n-not accustomed to talk to
women--ladies, I mean. F-forgot myself.--Pray forgive me!' And he
looked up, and her eyes, half-amused, met his, and she saw that they
were filled with tears.

'What have I to forgive?' she said, more gently, wondering on what
sort of strange sportsman she had fallen. 'You treat me like an
equal; you will deign to argue with me. But men in general--oh,
they hide their contempt for us, if not their own ignorance, under
that mask of chivalrous deference!' and then in the nasal fine
ladies' key, which was her shell, as bitter brusquerie was his, she
added, with an Amazon queen's toss of the head,--'You must come and
see us often. We shall suit each other, I see, better than most
whom we see here.'

A sneer and a blush passed together over Lancelot's ugliness.

'What, better than the glib Colonel Bracebridge yonder?'