in the world.  There is a fate attached to some women, from Helen of Troy downward, that blood is to be shed for them.  One duel on behalf of a woman is a reputation to her for life; two are notoriety.  If she is very young, can they be attributable to her?  We charge them naturally to her overpowering beauty.  It happened that Mrs. Lovell was beautiful.  Under the light of the two duels her beauty shone as from an illumination of black flame.  Boys adored Mrs. Lovell.  These are moths.  But more, the birds of air, nay, grave owls (who stand in this metaphor for whiskered experience) thronged, dashing at the apparition of terrible splendour.  Was it her fault that she had a name in the world?

Mrs. Margaret Lovell’s portrait hung in Edward’s room.  It was a photograph exquisitely coloured, and was on the left of a dark Judith, dark with a serenity of sternness.  On the right hung another coloured photograph of a young lady, also fair; and it was a point of taste to choose between them.  Do you like the hollowed lily’s cheeks, or the plump rose’s?  Do you like a thinnish fall of golden hair, or an abundant cluster of nut-brown?  Do you like your blonde with limpid blue eyes, or prefer an endowment of sunny hazel?  Finally, are you taken by an air of artistic innocence winding serpentine about your heart’s fibres; or is blushing simplicity sweeter to you?  Mrs. Lovell’s eyebrows were the faintly-marked trace of a perfect arch.  The other young person’s were thickish, more level; a full brown colour.  She looked as if she had not yet attained to any sense of her being a professed beauty:  but the fair widow was clearly bent upon winning you, and had a shy, playful intentness of aspect.  Her pure white skin was flat on the bone; the lips came forward in a soft curve, and, if they were not artistically stained, were triumphantly fresh.  Here, in any case, she beat her rival, whose mouth had the plebeian beauty’s fault of being too straight in a line, and was not trained, apparently, to tricks of dainty pouting.

It was morning, and the cousins having sponged in pleasant cold water, arranged themselves for exercise, and came out simultaneously into the sitting-room, slippered, and in flannels.  They nodded and went through certain curt greetings, and then Algernon stepped to a cupboard and tossed out the leather gloves.  The room was large and they had a tolerable space for the work, when the breakfast-table had been drawn a little on one side.  You saw at a glance which was the likelier man of the two, when they stood opposed.  Algernon’s rounded features, full lips and falling chin, were not a match, though he was quick on his feet, for the wary, prompt eyes, set mouth, and hardness of Edward.  Both had stout muscle, but in Edward there was vigour of brain as well, which seemed to knit and inform his shape without which, in fact, a man is as a ship under no command.  Both looked their best; as, when sparring, men always do look.