Lady Viping’s dinner-party had been kept waiting exactly thirty-five minutes for Lady Harman. Sir Isaac, with a certain excess of zeal, had intercepted the hasty note his wife had written to account for her probable absence. The party was to have centred entirely upon Lady Harman, it consisted either of people who knew her already, or of people who were to have been specially privileged to know her, and Lady Viping telephoned twice to Putney before she abandoned hope. “It’s disconnected,” she said, returning in despair from her second struggle with the great public service. “They can’t get a reply.” “It’s that little wretch,” said Lady Beach-Mandarin. “He hasn’t let her come. _I_ know him.” “It’s like losing a front tooth,” said Lady Viping, surveying her table as she entered the dining-room. “But surely—she would have written,” said Mr. Brumley, troubled and disappointed, regarding an aching gap to the left of his chair, a gap upon which a pathetic little card bearing Lady Harman’s name still lay obliquely. Naturally the talk tended to centre upon the Harmans. And naturally Lady Beach-Mandarin was very bold and outspoken and called Sir Isaac quite a number of vivid things. She also aired her views of the marriage of the future, which involved a very stringent treatment of husbands indeed. “Half his property and half his income,” said Lady Beach-Mandarin, “paid into her separate banking account.” “But,” protested Mr. Brumley, “would men marry under those conditions?” “Men will marry anyhow,” said Lady Beach-Mandarin, “under _any_ conditions.” “Exactly Sir Joshua’s opinion,” said Lady Viping. All the ladies at the table concurred and only one cheerful bachelor barrister dissented. The other men became gloomy and betrayed a distaste for this general question. Even Mr. Brumley felt a curious faint terror and had for a moment a glimpse of the possibilities that might lie behind the Vote. Lady Beach-Mandarin went bouncing back to the particular instance. At present, she said, witness Lady Harman, women were slaves, pampered slaves if you will, but slaves. As things were now there was nothing to keep a man from locking up his wife, opening all her letters, dressing her in sack-cloth, separating her from her children. Most men, of course, didn’t do such things, they were amenable to public opinion, but Sir Isaac was a jealous little Ogre. He was a gnome who had carried off a princess.... She threw out projects for assailing the Ogre. She would descend to-morrow morning upon the Putney house, a living flamboyant writ of Habeas Corpus. Mr. Brumley, who had been putting two and two together, was abruptly moved to tell of the sale of Black Strand. “They may be there,” he said. “He’s carried her off,” cried Lady Beach-Mandarin on a top note. “It might be the eighteenth century for all he cares. But if it’s Black Strand,—I’ll go to Black Strand....”