Seated in a row close to one another were three ladies — Aunts Ann, Hester (the two Forsyte maids), and Juley (short for Julia), who not in first youth had so far forgotten herself as to marry Septimus Small, a man of poor constitution.

However—the Frenchman's a practical man... He's trained to spot the redeeming graces as adroitly as a highly bred pig sniffs truffles. And faced with the homeliest dame he'll work over her until he can say, Yes—she's certainly homely, but she has 'delightful ears'; or and exciting back to her neck; or provocative biceps. And the worst he cares to admit about any woman is Yes, she is very ugly, but she has 'something' (Elle a quelque chose). And if you get him in a cynical but wholesome mood he'll indicate that after all, All cats are grey at night!

There is, however, another general approach to cutting the potential client population down to size: establish criteria, grounded in the Bank's basic strategy, that restrict the range of enterprises that the Bank tries to reach.

There goes a lord who tamed a wild shieldmaiden of the North!