Here Lady Dexter’s attention was distracted by the claims of a long-haired violinist desirous of performing a ‘classical’ piece immediately, which, when it did begin, had the effect of driving many people down to supper or out of the house altogether; and in the general scrimmage on the stairs ‘La Marina’ found herself elbowing Lord Carlyon. ‘Your wife’s gone home,’ she said curtly. ‘Why didn’t you go with her?’ ‘I have another engagement,’ he answered coldly. ‘Not with me!’ she said, showing all her even white teeth in a broad grin. ‘I talked ever so long to Lady Carlyon this evening, and told her just what I thought of you!’ His eyes darkened furiously, and the lines of his mouth grew hard and vindictive. ‘You wild cat!’ he said savagely. ‘If you have _dared_—’ ‘Puss, puss! Pretty puss!’ laughed Marina. ‘Cats have claws, my Lord Bill, and they scratch occasionally!’ With a swish of her silken skirts she darted past him into the supper-room, where she immediately became surrounded by a circle of young noodles, who evidently deemed it a peculiar glory and honour to be allowed to hand chicken salad to the gifted creature who nightly knocked her own nose with her foot in the presence of a crowded house. What was any art compared to this? What was science? What was learning? What was virtue? Nothing,—less than nothing! To have a shapely leg and know how to hit your nose with your foot, is every day proved to be the best way for a woman to have what is called a ‘good time’ in this world. She needn’t be able to spell, she may drop her h’s broadcast, she may ‘booze’ on brandy,—but so long as the nose is hit every night with the foot in an accurate and rhythmic manner, she will always have plenty of jewels and more male admirers than she can conveniently manage. For there is no degradation that can befall a woman which man will not excuse and condone; equally there is no elevation or honour she can win which he will not grudge and oppose with all the force of his nature! For man loves to hold a strangulation-grip on the neck of all creation, women included; and the idea that woman should suddenly wrench herself out of his grasp and refuse to be either trapped like a hare, hunted like a fox, or shot like a bird, is a strange, new and disagreeable experience for him. And very naturally he clings to the slave type of womanhood, and encourages the breed of those who are willing to become dancers and toys of his ‘harem,’ for, if all women were to rise to the height of their true and capable dignity, where should he go to for his so-called ‘fun’?