"Shamefully. You can no more believe in their statements than in epitaphs. There seems something peculiarly mendacious about stone as a recording medium. Only it must be admitted on behalf of the hieroglyphists that it may be the Egyptologists who are the braggers. There never was an ancient inscription which is not capable of being taken in a dozen different ways, like a party-leader's speech. Every word has six possible meanings and half a dozen probable ones. The _savants_ only pretend to understand the stones." So saying Lord Silverdale took his departure. On the doorstep he met a young lady carrying a brown paper parcel. She smiled so sweetly at him that he raised his hat and wondered where he had met her. But it was only another candidate. She faced Turple the magnificent and smiled on, unawed. Turple ended by relaxing his muscles a whit, then ashamed of himself he announced gruffly, "Miss Mary Friscoe." After the preliminary formalities, and after having duly assured herself that there was no male ear within earshot, Miss Friscoe delivered herself of the following candid confession. "I am a pretty girl, as you can see. I wear sweet frocks and smiles, and my eyes are of Heaven's own blue. Men are fond of gazing into them. Men are so artistic. They admire the beautiful and tell her so. Women are so different. I have overheard my girl friends call me 'that silly little flirt.' "I hold that any woman can twist any man round her little finger or his arm round her waist, therefore I consider it no conceit to say I have attracted considerable attention. If I had accepted all the offers I received, my marriages could easily have filled a column of _The Times_. I know there are women who think that men are coarse, unsentimental creatures, given over to slang, tobacco, billiards, betting, brandies and sodas, smoking-room stories, flirtations with barmaids, dress and general depravity. But the women who say or write that are soured creatures, who have never been loved, have never fathomed the depth and purity of men's souls. "I have been loved. I have been loved much and often, and I speak as one who knows. Man is the most maligned animal in creation. He is the least gross and carnal of creatures, the most exquisitely pure and refined in thought and deed; the most capable of disinterested devotion, self-sacrifice, chivalry, tenderness. Every man is his own Bayard.