Now, alas! the initiative is with the women, and men are not asked for chivalry.

Hence it languishes.

Lady de Culme won't hear of the Queen of Blondes; has forbidden her these many years!' Lord Ormont, to whom the lady's prattle was addressed, kept his visage moveless, except in slight jerks of the brows.
'What queen ?' 'You insist upon renewing my old, old pangs of jealousy, my dear lord! The Queen of Cyprus, they called her, in the last generation; she fights our great duellist handsomely.' 'My dear Mrs.Lawrence!' 'He triumphs finally, we know, but she beats him every round.' 'It 's only tattle that says the duel has begun.' 'May is the month of everlasting beauty! There 's a widower marquis now who claims the right to cast the glove to any who dispute it.' 'Mrs.May is too good-looking to escape from scandal.' 'Amy May has the good looks of the Immortals.' 'She can't be thirty.' 'In the calendar of women she counts thirty-four.' 'Malignity! Her husband's a lucky man.' 'The shots have proved it.' Lord Ormont nodded his head over the hopeless task of defending a woman from a woman, and their sharp interchange ceased.

But the sight of his complacency in defeat told Aminta that he did not respect his fair client: it drew a sketch of the position he allotted his wife before the world side by side with this Mrs.Amy May, though a Lady de Culme was persuaded to draw distinctions.
He had, however, quite complacently taken the dose intended for him by Mrs.Lawrence, who believed that the system of gently forcing him was the good one.
The ladies drove away in the afternoon.

The earl turned his back on manuscript.