your women.'

'All decadent nations,' said H. Stackton Dunckley, 'produce beautiful
women--it is one of the surest signs that they are going to pieces.
The Romans did at the last, and Rome and England are parallel cases.
As Mrs. Le Roy Jennings says, they are parasitic nations. What did the
Romans add to Greek art? The Greeks had this'--he made an elliptical
movement of his hands--'the Romans did that to it'--he described a
circle, then shrugged his shoulders, convinced that he had said
something crushing.

'So you think English women beautiful, Mr. Selwyn?' said Lady Durwent,
trying to retrieve the conversation from the slough of her inamorato's
ponderosity.

'Undoubtedly,' answered the American warmly. 'It is no doubt the
out-of-door life they lead, and I suppose the moist climate has
something to do with their wonderful complexions, but they are womanly
as well, and their voices are lovely.'

'I smell a rat,' said Smyth, who had in his mouth an unlit cigarette,
which had fastened itself to his lip and bobbed up and down with his
speech, like a miniature baton. 'When a man says a woman's voice is
sweet, it means that she has bored him; that what she has to say
interests him so little that he turns to contemplation of her voice.
This American is a devilish cute fellow.'

A babble of voices took up the charge and demanded immediate
explanation.