candidate; so, of course, in a popular election, he went to the wall."

Sir Henry's face grew more pensive and grave as he said, "It is very
hard on the women, certainly, that our race should have degenerated so,
for I believe in my conscience they are as clever and wicked, and
appreciate temptation as much as ever." (The gusto with which he said
this is indescribable.) "There is the Bellasys, for instance, with a
calculating sensuality, an astuteness of stratagem, an utter contempt of
truth, and a general aptitude for making fools of men, that poor Philip
the Regent would have worshiped. When she had no one better to corrupt,
I have seen her take in hand an older, sadder, wiser, uglier man than
myself, and in three days bring him to the verge of insanity, so that he
would scowl at his wife, his companion for forty years, the blameless
mother of six grown-up children, with a hideous expression indicative of
carving-knives and strychnine. Guy suits her best. His thews and sinews
awe her a little sometimes; and he has a certain hardness of character
and pitilessness of purpose, improved by my instructions, which will
carry him far, but not far enough, I think. You're right not to look
flattered" (Guy's face had moved no more than the marble Memnon's); "you
are only a shade better than the rest. Our effete world is not worthy of
that rare creature: she was born a century too late."

"I quite differ with you," Bruce said, in his harshest voice; "I am
certain the great plurality of the women of our day would resist any
temptation, from fear of the consequences, if not from principle."

Fancy the feelings of the Greek professor interrupted in his lecture by
a controverting freshman, and you will have some idea of Fallowfield's.
His eye lighted on the last speaker, glittering like a hooded snake's,
as it were caressing him with a lambent scorn.