Page:Free Opinions, Freely Expressed on Certain Phases of Modern Social Life and Conduct.djvu/134

 but fascinating Knight of the Round Table. No, she wouldn't polish a shield, you bet! She would make Lancelot polish it himself for all he was worth, and polish her own dear little boots and shoes for her into the bargain. That is one of her secrets—masterfulness—or, let us say queenliness, which sounds better. The Lord of creation can do nothing in the way of ordering her about,—because, as the Lady of creation she expects to order him about,—and she does! She expects to be worked for, worshipped and generally attended to,—and she gets her way. What she wants, she will have,—though "Companies" smash, and mighty Combines split into infinite nothingness; and more than any tamer of wild forest animals she makes all her male lions and bears dance at her bidding.

Perhaps the chief note in the ever-ascending scale of her innumerable attractions is her intense vitality. The mixed blood of many intelligent races courses through her delicate veins and gives a joyous lightness to the bounding of her heart and the swift grace of her step. She is full of energy as well as charm. If she sets out to enjoy herself, she enjoys herself thoroughly. She talks and laughs freely. She is not a mere well-dressed automaton like the greater majority of upper-class British dames. She is under the impression,—(a perfectly correct one) that tongues were given to converse with, and that lips, especially pretty ones, were made to smile with. She is, taken at her best, eminently good-natured, and refreshingly free from the jaundiced spite against others of her own sex which savours the afternoon chitter-chatter of nine out of every ten English spinsters and matrons