Madame Zattiany laughed. "Then I have unwittingly been playing my part in a little comedy. How stupid they must have thought me! But I really hope for their sakes that you are mistaken." She rose and held out her hand. "I am going to ask you to excuse me, Mr. Vane. I have a small commission for Mr. Clavering, who has kindly waited. And I am very tired." Vane's face fell and he looked resentfully at Clavering, in whom he instantly recognized a rival. But there was nothing to do but go and he went. When Madame Zattiany heard the front door close she told the footman on duty in the hall to put out the lights and go to bed. Then she walked down the room to the library door. "Will you put out these lights?" she asked Clavering. "I believe we still have a fire in here." Clavering, expecting to find her dissolved in tears, and, violent as his sympathy for her was, rejoicing that his was the part to comfort her, followed her precipitately. But she was standing by the table with scornful lips and eyes. "I thought you'd be all broken up," he stammered. Tears of disappointment almost rose to his own eyes. She laughed shortly. "I? Do you suppose I would pay them so great a compliment? But what a ridiculous exhibition they made of themselves. It seems incredible." "But surely you must have been hurt--and stabbed. It isn't possible that you weren't!" "Oh, yes, I was stabbed, but I think I was even more amused. I felt sorry for the poor things. I certainly never saw a more comically naked exhibition of human nature. It was worth coming to America for. Nor do I blame them. No doubt I should have felt the same at their age--although I hope I should even then have expressed myself in a fashion a trifle more subtle, a little less primeval." "Good God! Are you always so--so rational?" She smiled slightly. "If I deliberately unlearned the more valuable things a long life taught me there would be no object beyond vanity in being young again. And don't you suppose I was grateful tonight for my years--those years so crowded with training and experience? Who better prepared than I to hold my own against a lot of raw Americans?" "That is the first human thing you've said. Raw? Wasn't it Darwin who said that we are all such a short distance, in time, removed from our common savage ancestors that it is a wonder we don't revert oftener than we do? They were plain unadulterated females. I believe men are more civilized than women."