"Well, you can very easily try it," said Lillie. "I have just heard from the Princess of Portman Square—she is reorganizing her household in view of her nuptials2. Shall I write you a recommendation?"
"No, but I will read you an Address to an Egyptian Tipcat," replied his lordship, with the irrelevancy3 which was growing upon him. "You know the recent excavations4 have shown that the little Egyptians used to play 'pussy-cat' five thousand years ago."
ADDRESS TO AN EGYPTIAN TIP-CAT.
And thou has flown about—how strange a story—
Full five and forty centuries ago,
Ere Fayoum, fired with military glory,
Received from Gurod, with purpureal show,
The sea-born captives of the spear and bow;
And thou has blacked, perhaps, the very finest eye
That sparkled in the Twelfth Egyptian Dynasty.
The sight of thee brings visions panoramic5
Of manlier6 games, as Faro, Pyramids.
What hands, now tinct with substances balsamic,
Have set thee leaping like the sportive kids,
What time the passers-by did close their lids?
Did the stern Priesthood strive thy cult7 to smother8,
Or wast thou worshipped, like thy purring brother?
Where is the youth by whom thou wast created
And tipped profusely9? Doth he frisk in glee
In Aahlu, or lives he, transmigrated,
The lower life Osiris did decree,
Of fowl11, or fly, or fish, or fox, or flea12?
Or, fallen deeper, is he politician,
Stumping13 the land, his country's quack14 physician?
Thou Sphynx in wood, unchanged, serene15, immortal16,
How many States and Temples have decayed
And generations passed the mystic portal
Whilst thou, still young, hast gone on being played?
Say, when thy popularity shall fade?
And art thou—here's my last, if not my stiffest—
As good a bouncer as the hieroglyphist?
"Why, did the hieroglyphists use to brag17?" asked Lillie.
"Shamefully18. You can no more believe in their statements than in epitaphs. There seems something peculiarly mendacious19 about stone as a recording20 medium. Only it must be admitted on behalf of the hieroglyphists that it may be the Egyptologists who are the braggers. There never was an ancient inscription21 which is not capable of being taken in a dozen different ways, like a party-leader's speech. Every word has six possible meanings and half a dozen probable ones. The savants only pretend to understand the stones."
So saying Lord Silverdale took his departure. On the doorstep he met a young lady carrying a brown paper parcel. She smiled so sweetly at him that he raised his hat and wondered where he had met her.
But it was only another candidate. She faced Turple the magnificent and smiled on, unawed. Turple ended by relaxing his muscles a whit23, then ashamed of himself he announced gruffly, "Miss Mary Friscoe."
After the preliminary formalities, and after having duly assured herself that there was no male ear within earshot, Miss Friscoe delivered herself of the following candid22 confession25.
"I am a pretty girl, as you can see. I wear sweet frocks and smiles, and my eyes are of Heaven's own blue. Men are fond of gazing into them. Men are so artistic26. They admire the beautiful and tell her so. Women are so different. I have overheard my girl friends call me 'that silly little flirt27.'
"I hold that any woman can twist any man round her little finger or his arm round her waist, therefore I consider it no conceit28 to say I have attracted considerable attention. If I had accepted all the offers I received, my marriages could easily have filled a column of The Times. I know there are women who think that men are coarse, unsentimental creatures, given over to slang, tobacco, billiards29, betting, brandies and sodas30, smoking-room stories, flirtations with barmaids, dress and general depravity. But the women who say or write that are soured creatures, who have never been loved, have never fathomed31 the depth and purity of men's souls.
"I have been loved. I have been loved much and often, and I speak as one who knows. Man is the most maligned32 animal in creation. He is the least gross and carnal of creatures, the most exquisitely33 pure and refined in thought and deed; the most capable of disinterested34 devotion, self-sacrifice, chivalry35, tenderness. Every man is his own Bayard.
"If men had their deserts we women—heartless, frivolous36, venal37 creatures that we are—would go down on our knees to them, and beg them to marry us. I am a woman and again I speak as one who knows. For I am not a bad specimen38 of my sex. Even my best friends admit I am only silly. I am really a very generous and kind-hearted little thing. I never keep my tailor waiting longer than a year, I have made quite a number of penwipers for the poor, and I have never told an unnecessary lie in my life. I give a great deal of affection to my mother and even a little assistance in the household. I do not smoke scented cigarettes. I read travels and biographies as well as novels, play the guitar rather well, attend a Drawing Class, rise long before noon, am good-tempered, wear my ball-dresses more than once, turn winter dresses into spring frocks by stripping off the fur and putting on galon, and diversify39 my gowns by changing the sleeves. In short, I am a superior, thoroughly40 domesticated41 girl. And yet I have never met a man who has not had the advantage of me in all the virtues42.
"There was George Holly,—I regret I cannot mention my lovers in chronological43 order, but my memories are so vague, they all seem to fuse into one another. Perhaps it is because there is a lack of distinctiveness44 about men—a monotonous45 goodness which has its charm but is extremely confusing. One thing I do remember though, about George—at least, I think it was George. His moustache was rather bristly, and the little curled tips used to tickle46 one's nose comically. I was very disappointed in George, I had heard such a lot of talk about him; but when I got to really know him I found he was not a bit like it. How I came to really know him was like this. 'Mary,' he said, as we sat on the stairs, high up, so as not to be in the way of the waiters. 'Won't you say "yes" and make me the happiest man alive? Never man loved as I love now. Answer me. Do not torture me with suspense47.' I was silent; speechless with happiness to think that I had won this true manly48 heart. I looked down at my fan. My lips were forming the affirmative monosyllable, when George continued passionately49,
"'Ah, Mary, speak! Mary, the only woman I ever loved.'
"I turned pale with emotion. Tears came into my eyes.
"'Is this true?' I articulated. 'Am I really the only woman you ever loved?'
"'By my hopes of a hereafter, yes!' George was a bit slangy in his general conversation. The shallow world never knew the poetry he could rise to. 'This is the first time I have known what it is to love, Mary, my sweet, my own.'
"'No, not your own,' I interrupted coldly, for my heart was like ice within me. 'I belong to myself, and I intend to. Will you give me your arm into the ballroom—Mr. Daythorpe must be looking for me everywhere.'
"It sounds very wicked to say it, I know, but I cannot delay my confession longer. I love, I adore, I doat on wicked men, men who love not wisely but too well. When I learnt history at school I could always answer questions about the reign50 of Charles II., it was such a deliciously wicked period. I love Burns, Lord Byron, De Musset, Lovelace—all the nice naughty men of history or fiction. I like Ouida's guardsman, whose love is a tornado51, and Charlotte Bronte's Rochester, and Byron's Don Juan. I hate, I detest52 milksops. And a good man always seems to me a milksop. It is a flaw—a terrible flaw in my composition, I know—but I cannot help it. It makes me miserable53, but what can I do? Nature will out.
"That was how I came to find George out, to discover he was not the terrible cavalier, the abandoned squire54 of dames55 the world said he was. His reputation was purely56 bogus. The gossips might buzz, but I had it on the highest authority. I was the first woman he had ever loved. What pleasure is there in such a conquest? It grieved me to break his heart, but I had no option.
"Daythorpe was another fellow who taught me the same lesson of the purity and high emotions of his cruelly libelled sex. He, too, when driven into a corner (far from the madding crowd) confessed that I was the only woman he had ever loved. I have tried them all—poets and musicians, barristers and business-men. They all had suffered from the same incapacity for affection till they met me. It was quite pathetic to discover how truly all men were brothers. The only difference was that while some added I was the only woman they ever could love, others insisted that never man had loved before as they did now. The latter lovers always remind me of advertisers offering a superior article to anything in the trade. Nowhere could I meet the man I longed for—the man who had lived and loved. Once I felt stirrings towards a handsome young widower57, but he went out of his way to assure me he had never cared for his first wife. After that, of course, he had no chance.
Platonic58 Love.
"Unable to discover any but good young men, I resigned myself perforce to spinsterhood. I resolved to cultivate only Platonic relations. I told young men to come to me and tell me their troubles. I encouraged them to sit at my feet and confide59 in me while I held their hands to give them courage. But even so they would never confess anything worth hearing, and if they did love anybody it invariably turned out to be me and me only. Yes, I grieve to say these Platonic young men were just as good as the others; leaving out the audacity60 of their proposing to me when I had given them no encouragement. Here again I found men distressingly61 alike. They are constitutionally unable to be girls' chums, they are always hankering to convert the friendship into love. Time after time anticipations62 of a genuine comradeship were rudely dispelled63 by fatuous
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