Vagaries of the Moment.

Park Lane.

Dearest Daphne,—This is completely a jewel season. People may be just as glittery as they like. Heads, necks and arms don't monopolise the pretty-pretties now, and, what with jewelled tunics, girdles, shoes, stockings and "Honi soits," as well as gems on what little corsage and skirt one may be wearing, one's jewel-box may be quite quite emptied every evening. Indeed, if we hadn't plenty of jewels I sometimes wonder, my dear, what our grande toilette would consist of! And this has led to the launching of "Olga's" latest triumph, the lock-up evening wrap—a charming affair, thickly plated with sequins and fastening with the dearest little real locks all down the front from the throat to the toes!

À propos, Beryl Clarges had such a darling adventure the other night. She came out of the opera, meaning to go on to the Flummerys' and one or two more places, with all her pretty-pretties on, and fastened securely into her lock-up wrap. She got into her car suspecting nothing. But it wasn't her own chauffeur and footman at all, Daphne! It was two delicious robbers who'd managed to get possession of her car; and they drove her out to Hampstead Heath and held a pistol to her head and said, "Now, my lady, you've got on about thirty-thousand pound worth of sparklers. Hand 'em over quietly and we won't hurt you." And Beryl didn't turn a hair (she says) but answered, "You silly boys! I'm locked into 'Olga's' new thief-proof wrap and you can't get anything but my shoes. My maid always locks me in and lets me out, and she's got the keys and you've left her behind!" And they tried to wrench the wrap open, but it resisted, and Beryl put in some piercing g's in alt., and help came and the robbers fled. And now she's the woman of the moment, and her picture, standing on Hampstead Heath in her lock-up wrap, defying ten robbers, is in all the weeklies.

Some people say it was all managed by her publicity agent, and others declare it was a put-up thing between Beryl and "Olga." Anyhow, the new "manteau de sÛretÉ" is absolutely booming, and entre nous, chÉrie, people who never wear anything more valuable than sequins and paste are quite falling over each other to get thief-proof wraps!

There's quite a little rage among girls just now for boxing. Juno Farrington, the Southlands' girl, is responsible for it. She's been the acknowledged leader of the jeunes filles since she first came out and has set the fashion among them in everything, from inventing a new cocktail to chaperoning her chaperon. (It was Juno who first started the custom at parties of doing all the after-supper dances in the street and finishing up the night at an early coffee-stall.) The Duchess of Southlands was making her little moan to me the other day, and I told her she ought to be so proud of dear Juno having temperament and personality. "Temperament and personality are all very well, Blanche," said the dear little invertebrate woman, "but worried mothers wish they didn't develop till after marriage! If Juno's grandmamma knew how modern she is she'd leave everything she has to charity." Indeed it's a constant effort for her parents to hide their girl's modernity from the dowager—a dear old disapproving piece of antiquity whose youth dates from remote ages of blushing, fainting, accomplishments and downcast eyes. She's an immense fortune to leave, and Juno (so far) is her heiress; but the girl seriously imperilled her prospects during the very last visit the Southlands had from the dowager. The latter was doing her everlasting knitting one day when she called out, "Here, Juno, child, come and help me. I've dropped a stitch." And Juno went to her and looked about on the floor and said, "Where did you drop it, Gran? I don't see it anywhere!"

I'd a little dinner-dance on Thursday and Juno was one of several girls who brought their mothers. "Oh, my hat and feathers!" she called out as she looked over the menu; "none of your À la dishes for this child! Sorry, old girl, but I'm in training. Will you order broiled steak and pale ale for me? I'm going to box Tricky Sal, the coloured girl-boxer from the Other Side. Wonder how she'll like my upper-cut and left-hand jab! Isn't it glorious, people? I've got my ambition! I'm a White Hope! See if we don't fill the Colidrome at our Grand Boxing MatinÉe!"

"Girlie," pleaded la mÈre, "you're joking! You wouldn't dream of boxing except before just relations and intimate friends!" "Relations and intimate friends be somethinged!" cried Juno. "I'm going to box in front of the good old public! And the gate shall go to your Holiday Home for Melancholy Manicurists, mother dear." "My only one, my Melancholy Manicurists are quite quite in funds," urged the duchess; "we want nothing for them." "Don't worry your little head, dear," said Juno; "they've got to be helped and that's all about it!"

So the matinÉe at the Colidrome is to come off. The piÈce de rÉsistance will, of course, be Juno Farrington and Tricky Sal. Then the Dunstables' two girls, Franky and Freckles, have promised a sparring match if their mother doesn't get to hear of it down at Dunstable Castle (they're going out with their aunt this season). Beryl and Babs will wrestle. And they want me to give a show with the Indian clubs (no one does them quite as I do, but I'm not a bit vain about it). Every seat is sold already!

I believe people never had such a horror of bores and banality as they have now—owing chiefly to the influence of our Anti-Banalite Club. Silent dinners, at which one communicates only by wireless, are a good deal done and are quite nice and restful, the general atmosphere (if someone tainted with banalism seems inclined to speak) being, "I know what you're going to say. Please—please—please don't say it!" On a little dinner of this kind at Bosh and Wee-Wee's last week there descended a terrible man, a far-away cousin of Wee-Wee's, who hardly ever leaves his terres in some remote part of the country—the sort of creature, you know, dearest, who always has a colour and a smile and an appetite and who writes to the papers to say he's seen a bush growing upside down or has heard the cuckoo singing in the night or has plucked and eaten something in his garden in December! He began by mentioning the weather! People quite jumped in their chairs, and Popsy, Lady Ramsgate, gave a little scream. He followed this up by saying town seemed full; and then, À propos of having run up against a college friend in town, informed us that the world was a small place after all! When this last enormity was let loose upon us Norty said solemnly, "Where's the nearest point policeman?" And, instead of taking the hint, the creature began to hold forth about "that fine body of men, the London police!" Wee-Wee was in sackcloth and ashes about it afterwards. She says that sort of thing is in his family.

I had a serious talk with Norty about the Irish problem yesterday, and he tells me there's a whisper in the Lobbies that certain persons have already sold the kinema rights of the first Irish Parliament to a film company for a colossal sum and, as the money is spent and the company is incessantly jogging them to deliver the goods, they're bound to put the thing through! It's said that someone asked a Member of the Government point-blank whether there was any truth in the rumour, and was told, "The answer is in the negative-affirmative, Sir!"

Ever thine,

Blanche.