He laughed. "Not at all. Why should they? Every man is so intent on his own aims, and thinks so much of his own personality that he would scarcely forget his _ego_ if the very devil himself were behind him. Women look at me sometimes, with the affected coy and kitten-like interest usually exhibited by the frail sex for a personable man." "I cannot blame them!" I answered, my gaze still resting on his stately figure and fine head with as much admiration as I might have felt for a noble picture or statue--"What of this Lady Sibyl we are to meet to-night,--how does she regard you?" "Lady Sibyl has never seen me,"--he replied--"And I have only seen her at a distance. It is chiefly for the purpose of an introduction to her that the Earl has asked us to his box this evening." "Ha ha! Matrimony in view!" I exclaimed jestingly. "Yes--I believe Lady Sibyl is for sale,"--he answered with the callous coldness that occasionally distinguished him and made his handsome features look like an impenetrable mask of scorn--"But up to the present the bids have not been sufficiently high. And I shall not purchase. I have told you already, Tempest, I hate women." "Seriously?" "Most seriously. Women have always done me harm,--they have wantonly hindered me in my progress. And why I specially abominate them is, that they have been gifted with an enormous power for doing good, and that they let this power run to waste and will not use it. Their deliberate enjoyment and choice of the repulsive, vulgar and common-place side of life disgusts me. They are much less sensitive than men, and infinitely more heartless. They are the mothers of the human race, and the faults of the race are chiefly due to them. That is another reason for my hatred." "Do you want the human race to be perfect?" I asked astonished--"Because, if you do, you will find that impossible." He stood for a moment apparently lost in thought. "Everything in the Universe is perfect,"--he said, "except that curious piece of work--Man. Have you never thought out any reason why he should be the one flaw,--the one incomplete creature in a matchless Creation?" "No, I have not,"--I replied--"I take things as I find them." "So do I,"--and he turned away, "And as I find _them_, so they find _me_! Au revoir! Dinner in an hour's time remember!"