"Yes," observes Usk, with complacency: "the storms of memory sometimes sink into them as if they were sponges, and sometimes glide off them as if they were ducks. It is just as they find it convenient. But Madame Sabaroff can't have been more than a child when Gervase was in Russia." Mr. Wootton smiles again significantly. "She was married." "To a brute!" cries Dorothy Usk. "All husbands," says Lord Usk, with a chuckle, "are brutes, and all wives are angels. _C'est imprimé!_" "I hope no one will ever call me an angel! I should know at once that I was a bore!" "No danger, my lady: you've no wings on your shoulders, and you've salt on your tongue." "I'm sure you mean to be odiously rude, but to my taste it's a great compliment." "My dear Alan," says Dorothy Usk, having got him at a disadvantage in her boudoir one-quarter of an hour after luncheon, "what has there been between you and the Princess Sabaroff? Everybody feels there is something. It is in the air. Indeed, everybody is talking about it. Pray tell me. I am dying to know." Gervase is silent. "Everybody in the house is sure of it," continues his hostess. "They don't say so, of course, but they think so. Nina Curzon, who is _mauvaise langue_, pretends even that she knows all the circumstances; and it would seem that they are not very nice circumstances. I really cannot consent to go on in the dark any longer." "Ask the lady," replies Gervase, stiffly. "I certainly shall do nothing so ill-bred. You are a man, you are a relation of mine, and I can say things to you I couldn't possibly say to a stranger, which Madame Sabaroff is quite to me. If you won't answer, I shall only suppose that you paid court to her and were 'spun,' as the boys say at the examinations." "Not at all," says Gervase, haughtily. "Then tell me the story." He hesitates. "I don't know whether you will think very well of me if I tell you the truth." "That you may be sure I shall not. No man ever behaves well where women are in the question." "My dear Dolly, what unkind exaggeration! If I tell you anything, you will be sure not to repeat what I say? Madame Sabaroff considers me a stranger to her: I am bound to accept her decision on such a point." "You knew her in Russia?" "Yes; when I was there she was the new beauty at the court. She had been married a year or less to Paul Sabaroff. I had the honor of her friendship at that time; if she withdraws it now I must acquiesce." "Oh!" Lady Usk gives a little sound between a snort and a sigh. She is annoyed. The gossipers are right, then. She is sorry the children have been so much with their friend, and she is infuriated at the idea of her husband's triumph over her credulity. "Oh, pray don't think--don't think for a moment----" murmurs Gervase; but his cousin understands that it is the conventional compulsory expostulation which every man who is well-bred is bound to make on such subjects.