The younger woman had turned very pale. The Duchess's words concerning Berwick and his sentimental adventures had cut her to the quick. Heavens! was this the way people were talking of her brother? The words, "an honourable man," sounded in her ears. How cruelly, how harshly, men and women judged each other! "Of course, what you said just now concerning James and his love affairs,--if one may call them so,--impressed me. How could it be otherwise? As you know, I have no sympathy, I might almost say no understanding, of his attitude in these matters. There is a whole side of life to which I feel," her voice dropped, "the utmost repugnance. I have never allowed anyone to make me those confidences which seem so usual nowadays, nay, more, I have never even glanced at the details of any divorce case. I once dismissed a very good maid--you remember Bennett?--because I found her reading something of the kind in my room. I could not have borne to have about me a woman who I knew delighted in such literature----" "But my dear Arabella----" "Let me speak! Bear with me a moment longer! Now, about James. Of course I know he's in a difficult position--one that is, as you say, unnatural. But, after all, many men remain unmarried from choice, ay, and even free from foolish intrigues--to me such episodes are not love affairs. If there is any fear of such folly leading to marriage, well then, for my brother the matter becomes one of terrible moment----" "You mean because of the money?" The Duchess had sunk down again into a chair--she was looking up at her friend, full of remorse at having seemed to put Arabella on her defence. "Yes, Albinia, because of the money. You do not know--you have never known--what it is to lack money. I have never wanted it for myself, but I have longed for it, Heaven alone knows how keenly, simply to be relieved from constant care and wearing anxieties. I seem to be the first Berwick who has learnt how _not_ to spend! As for James, it is impossible to imagine him again a poor man." "And yet he is not extravagant." Miss Berwick looked pityingly at the Duchess. "What is extravagance? Perhaps in the common sense of the word James is not extravagant. But he cares supremely for those things which, in these ignoble times of ours, money alone ensures--Power--the power to be independent--the indefinite, but very real, prestige great wealth gives among those who despise the prestige of rank." "But do those people matter?" asked the Duchess, rather superbly. "Snobbish radicals--I've met 'em!"