gets bigger. And he's big enough as it is. I must keep him quiet."

"But you can't keep the other men quiet. With your face and your voice--"

"Oh, it isn't the voice," she said with contempt.

He looked at her rather sadly.

"Why will you put such an exaggerated value on your appearance? Why will
you never allow that three-quarters at least of your attraction comes
from something else?"

"What?"

"Your personality--your self."

"My soul!" she said, suddenly putting on a farcically rapt and yearning
expression and speaking in a hollow, hungry voice. "Are we in the
prehistoric Eighties?"

"We are in the unchanging world."

"Unchanging! My dear boy!"

"Yes, unchanging," he repeated obstinately.

He pressed his lips together and looked away. Miss Filberte was cackling
and smiling on a settee, with a man whose figure presented a succession
of curves, and who kept on softly patting his hands together and swaying
gently backwards and forwards.