Mr. Paddock, meanwhile, was toying unhappily with his food. He had little to say. The attractive young lady he had taken in had already classified him as a bore. Most unjust of the attractive young lady. "It's lamentable, really." Mrs. Bruce was speaking. "Even in our best society conversation has given way to the turkey trot. Our wits are in our feet. Where once people talked art, music, literature--now they tango madly. It really seems--" "Everything you say is true," interrupted the duchess blandly. "I sometimes think the race of the future will be--a trotting race." Mrs. Bruce started perceptibly. Her eyes lighted with fire. She had been working up to this line herself, and the coincidence was passing strange. She glared at the hostess. Mr. Paddock studied his plate intently. "I for one," went on the Duchess of Lismore, "do not dance the tango or the turkey trot. Nor am I willing to take the necessary steps to learn them." A little ripple ran round the table--the ripple that up to now had been the exclusive privilege of Mrs. Bruce. That lady paled visibly. She realized that there was no coincidence here. "It seems too bad, too," she said, fixing the hostess firmly with an angry eye. "Because women could have the world at their feet--if they'd only keep their feet still long enough." It was the turn of the duchess to start, and start she did. As one who could not believe her ears, she stared at Mrs. Bruce. The "wittiest hostess in San Marco" was militantly under way. "Women are not what they used to be," she continued. "Either they are mad about clothes, or they go to the other extreme and harbor strange ideas about the vote, eugenics, what not. In fact, the sex reminds me of the type of shop that abounds in a small town--its specialty is drygoods and notions." The duchess pushed away a plate which had only that moment been set before her. She regarded Mrs. Bruce with the eye of Mrs. Pankhurst face to face with a prime minister. "We are hardly kind to our sex," she said, "but I must say I agree with you. And the extravagance of women! Half the women of my acquaintance wear gorgeous rings on their fingers--while their husbands wear blue rings about their eyes." Mrs. Bruce's face was livid. "Madam!" she said through her teeth. "What is it?" asked the duchess sweetly. They sat glaring at each other. Then with one accord they turned--to glare at Mr. Jack Paddock. Mr. Paddock, prince of assurance, was blushing furiously. He stood the combined glare as long as he could--then he looked up into the night. "How--how close the stars seem," he murmured faintly. It was noted afterward that Mrs. Bruce maintained a vivid silence during the remainder of that dinner. The duchess, on the contrary, wrung from her purchased lines every possibility they held. And in that embattled setting Mr. Minot sat, deaf to the delicious lisp of the debutante at his side. What was woman's greatest privilege? Wasn't it----