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 I think I could have been a great lover. Those women lived who swayed the rulers of the world, whose frown made kings and nations tremble.

‘Was this the face that launched a thousand ships, And burnt the topless towers of Ilium?’

Think of it, Perseus—the world in arms for a woman’s face! And now!”

She shrugged her shoulders with disdain, but there was a smouldering fire in her eyes which might have set ablaze those “topless towers.”

“T think the times are not so greatly changed as you seem to imagine,” he said. “Do you suppose woman’s influence in the world is any the less because she does not seem to flaunt it? Kings still rule the greater portion of the earth, and women still rule kings either as wife or mistress. Her influence has never waned; I think it never will. There is more power wield- ed by woman, even in these days, than the ordinary man imagines. Indeed, is not all the power in her? Petticoat influence, my dear Andromeda, has never failed to move the world since Eve took that first bite at the apple.”

She smiled languidly into his eyes.