Now, if Miss SOWERBY meant deliberately to create a woman who does
not really know what she wants--a creature of moods without assignable
motives--then I am not ashamed of failing to understand her _Sheila_,
since her _Sheila_ did not understand herself. But if she is designed
to illustrate the eternal feminine (always supposing that there is
such a thing) then I protest that her chief claim to be representative
of her sex is her unreasonableness. Of course I should never pretend
to say of a woman in drama or fiction that she has not been drawn true
to nature. To know one man is, in most essentials, to know all men;
to know fifty women (though this may be a liberal education) does
not advance you very far in knowledge of a sex that has never been
standardized.

When we first meet _Sheila_ her idea of happiness is to spend an
evening (innocent of escort) at the picture-palace; take this from
her and her heart threatens to break. Three short months and she has
developed to the point of breaking off relations with a husband
who has given her all the picture-palaces she wanted, but has also
committed the unpardonable indecency of marrying her with the object
of getting a son!

[Illustration: THE VICE OF INCONSTANCY.

_Sheila_. "BEFORE YOU MARRIED ME YOU WEREN'T NEARLY SO NICE TO ME.
IT'S HORRID OF YOU TO CHANGE."

_Mark Holdsworth_.. MR. C. AUBREY SMITH.

_Sheila_........... MISS FAY COMPTON.]