The fault of us women is that we so often over-esteem the value of our good looks. To my mind the possession of handsome toilettes is quite as essential to a woman’s well-being and man’s contentment as are personal attractions. A woman, however beautiful she may be, loses half her charm to men’s eyes if she dresses dowdily or without taste. Nobody ever saw a really beautiful Parisienne. For the most part they are thin-nosed, thin-lipped, scraggy-necked, yellow-faced, and absolutely ugly, yet are they not, merely by reason of their chic in dress, the most attractive women in the world? I know that many will dissent from this estimate, but as my mirror tells me that I have a face more than commonly handsome, and as dozens of men have further endorsed the mute evidence of my toilet-glass, I can only confess that all my success and all my harmless flirtations have had their commencements in the attraction exercised by the dainty creations of my couturière. We hear much complaining among women that there are not a sufficient number of nice men to go round, but, after all, the woman who knows how to dress need have no lack of offers of marriage. American women can always be distinguished from the English, and it is certain that to their quiet smartness in frills and furbelows their success in the marriage mart is due. Yes, there was no doubt that Reggie Thorne admired me. I had suspected it on the night when we had waltzed together at the Pendymans’ and afterwards gossiped together over ices, but with a woman dance-flirtations are soon forgotten, and, truth to tell, I had forgotten him until our sudden and unexpected meeting. “What awfully good luck we’ve met Gerald and Reggie,” Ulrica said when half-an-hour later we were seated together in the privacy of our sitting-room. “Gerald, poor boy, was always a bit gone on me in Washington, and as for Reggie--well, he’ll make an excellent cavalier for you. Even if Mother Grundy is dead and buried, it isn’t very respectable to be constantly trotting over to Monte Carlo without male escort.” “You mean that they’ll be a couple of useful males--eh?” “Certainly. Their advent is quite providential. Some of Gerald’s luck at the table may be reflected upon us. I should dearly like to make my expenses at Monte.” “So should I.” “There’s no reason why we shouldn’t,” she went on confidently. “I know quite a lot of people who’ve won enough to pay for the whole trip to Europe.” “Reggie has money, hasn’t he?” “Of course. The old man was on Wall Street and died very comfortably off. All of it went to Reggie, with an annuity to his mother. Of course, he’s spent a good deal since. A man doesn’t live in Washington as he does, drive tandem, and all that sort of thing on nothing a year.” “They used to say that Gerald Keppel hadn’t a dollar only what the old man allowed him monthly--and a most niggardly allowance, I’ve heard.”