‘DEAR DELICIA,—I regret that a woman of your culture and intelligence should not be able to understand the world and the ways of the world better. Men do not discuss such subjects as that alluded to in your letter; the least said the soonest mended. I enclose a cutting from _Honesty_, in which you will perceive that I possibly have more cause to complain of you than you of me. Greater licence is permitted to men than to women, as I imagined you knew, and your position with regard to the public should make you doubly careful. I hope you will enjoy your change of air.—Yours affectionately, WILL.’ He read over the press-cutting alluded to, which ran as follows:— ‘It has been frequently rumoured that the real “Dona Sol” of the “Ernani” who has been so long delighting the histrionic world, is a well-known lady novelist, who has been lifted into far more prominence that her literary capabilities would ever have given her, by her marriage into the aristocracy with a certain gallant Guards officer. The “Dona” in question has long been considered “as chaste as ice, as pure as snow,” but ice and snow are prone to melt in the heat of an ardent passion, and the too evident ardour of the “Ernani” in this case has, we hear, won him his cause, with the result that the “ears of the groundlings” will shortly be tickled with a curious scandal.’ ‘After all,’ muttered Carlyon, as he thrust this in an envelope, ‘it’s much worse that she, as a woman, should be coupled with Paul Valdis, than that I as a man should amuse myself with Marina. She is ridiculously inconsistent; she ought to know that a man in this world does as he likes,—a woman does as she must. The two things are totally different. Now, I shall have to wait till she telegraphs her address before I can send this. What an infernal nuisance!’