“'No, nor woman neither,'” said Davenport slowly, a coldness coming upon his face. “I don't know what your experience may have been. We have only our own lights to go by; and mine have taught me to expect nothing from women. Fair-weather friends; creatures that must be amused, and are unscrupulous at whose cost or how great. One of their amusements is to be worshipped by a man; and to bring that about they will pretend love, with a pretence that would deceive the devil himself. The moment they are bored with the pastime, they will drop the pretence, and feel injured if the man complains. We take the beauty of their faces, the softness of their eyes, for the outward signs of tenderness and fidelity; and for those supposed qualities, and others which their looks seem to express, we love them. But they have not those qualities; they don't even know what it is that we love them for; they think it is for the outward beauty, and that that is enough. They don't even know what it is that we, misled by that outward softness, imagine is beyond; and when we are disappointed to find it isn't there, they wonder at us and blame us for inconstancy. The beautiful woman who could be what she looks--who could really contain what her beauty seems the token of--whose soul, in short, could come up to the promise of her face,--there would be a creature! You'll think I've had bad luck in love, too, Mr. Larcher.” Larcher was thinking, for the instant, about Edna Hill, and wondering how near she might come to justifying Davenport's opinion of women. For himself, though he found her bewitching, her prettiness had never seemed the outward sign of excessive tenderness. He answered conventionally: “Well, one _would_ suppose so from your remarks. Of course, women like to be amused, I know. Perhaps we expect too much from them. 'Oh, woman in our hours of ease, Uncertain, coy, and hard to please, And variable as the shade By the light quivering aspen made.' I've sometimes had reason to recall those lines.” Mr. Larcher sighed at certain memories of Miss Hill's variableness. “But then, you know,-- 'When pain and anguish wring the brow, A ministering angel them.'” “I can't speak in regard to pain and anguish,” said Davenport. “I've experienced both, of course, but not so as to learn their effect on women. But suppose, if you can, a woman who should look kindly on an undeserving, but not ill-meaning, individual like myself. Suppose that, after a time, she happened to hear of the reputation of bad luck that clung to him. What would she do then?” “Undertake to be his mascot, I suppose, and neutralize the evil influence,” replied Larcher, laughingly. “Well, if I were to predict on my own experience, I should say she would take flight as fast as she could, to avoid falling under the evil influence herself. The man would never hear of her again, and she would doubtless live happy ever after.”