’Too fine in mind, too fat in body; that is a consequence with men, dear madam.  The conqueror stands to his weapons, or he loses his possessions.’

’Mr. Sullivan Smith jumps at his pleasure from the special to the general, and will be back, if we follow him, Lady Pennon.  It is the trick men charge to women, showing that they can resemble us.’

Lady Pennon thumped her knee.  ’Not a bit.  There’s no resemblance, and they know nothing of us.’

‘Women are a blank to them, I believe,’ said Whitmonby, treacherously bowing;—­and Westlake said: 

’Traces of a singular scrawl have been observed when they were held in close proximity to the fire.’

‘Once, on the top of a coach,’ Whitmonby resumed, ’I heard a comely dame of the period when summers are ceasing threatened by her husband with a divorce, for omitting to put sandwiches in their luncheon-basket.  She made him the inscrutable answer:  “Ah, poor man! you will go down ignorant to your grave!” We laughed, and to this day I cannot tell you why.’

’That laugh was from a basket lacking provision; and I think we could trace our separation to it,’ Diana said to Lady Pennon, who replied:  ‘They expose themselves; they get no nearer to the riddle.’

Miss Courtney, a rising young actress, encouraged by a smile from Mrs. Warwick, remarked:  ‘On the stage, we have each our parts equally.’

‘And speaking parts; not personae mutae.’

‘The stage has advanced in verisimilitude,’ Henry Wilmers added slyly; and Diana rejoined:  ’You recognize a verisimilitude of the mirror when it is in advance of reality.  Flatter the sketch, Miss Paynham, for a likeness to be seen.  Probably there are still Old Conservatives who would prefer the personation of us by boys.’

‘I don’t know,’ Westlake affected dubiousness.  ’I have heard that a step to the riddle is gained by a serious contemplation of boys.’

‘Serious?’

‘That is the doubt.’

‘The doubt throws its light on the step!’

‘I advise them not to take any leap from their step,’ said Lady Pennon.

’It would be a way of learning that we are no wiser than our sires; but perhaps too painful a way,’ Whitmonby observed.  ’Poor Mountford Wilts boasted of knowing women; and—­he married.  To jump into the mouth of the enigma, is not to read it.’

‘You are figures of conceit when you speculate on us, Mr. Whitmonby.’

‘An occupation of our leisure, my lady, for your amusement.’

’The leisure of the humming-top, a thousand to the minute, with the pretence that it sleeps!’ Diana said.

’The sacrilegious hand to strip you of your mystery is withered as it stretches,’ exclaimed Westlake.  ’The sage and the devout are in accord for once.’

’And whichever of the two I may be, I’m one of them, happy to do my homage blindfold!’ Sullivan Smith waved the sign of it.