Nesta professed excessive disappointment. 'Now, if it had been in
England, Skips!' she said, under her mother's gentle gloom of brows.

He made show of melancholy submission.

'There, Skepsey, you have a good excuse, we are sure,' Nataly said.

And women, when they are such ladies as these, are sent to prove to us
that they can be a blessing; instead of the dreadful cry to Providence
for the reason of the spread of the race of man by their means! He
declared his readiness, rejecting excuses, to state his case to them, but
for his fear of having it interpreted as an appeal for their kind aid in
obtaining his master's forgiveness. Mr. Durance had very considerately
promised to intercede. Skepsey dropped a hint or two of his naughty
proceedings drily aware that their untutored antipathy to the manly art
would not permit of warmth.

Nesta said: 'Do you know, Skips, we saw a grand exhibition of fencing in
Paris.'

He sighed. 'Ladies can look on at fencing! foils and masks! Captain
Dartrey Fenellan has shown me, and says, the French are our masters at
it.' He bowed constrainedly to mademoiselle.

'You box, M. Skepsey!' she said.

His melancholy increased: 'Much discouragement from Government, Society!
If ladies . . . but I do not venture. They are not against Games.
But these are not a protection . . . to them, when needed; to the
country. The country seems asleep to its position. Mr. Durance has