Sin! How absurd that word seemed. Was there such a thing in the presence of such perfection? John gazed at her as she sat at his side in the car, talking to Bobbie, while Tod drove. She was alluded to as a "notorious" woman, and as John thought of it, he almost laughed aloud; what chance had all the dull, dingy, respectable women at the side of this empress of life? John, of course, did not know the details of the divorce case which had made her, for six weeks, the most discussed woman in the world. The young peer who had ruined his life and hers, and who, strangely enough, had found all the sympathy while she took all the blame, who had declared himself powerless in her presence. Perhaps so, but if so, why so contemptible in that power, why the ready surrender of her character, the confession of impotence? She was unfaithful, a married experienced woman of thirty-five, and he a young boy of twenty-one. But whose was the sacrifice? She should have known better, said the world, she corrupted a boy. But if his was the ardour, if the passion of first love and the lyrical song of youth were laid at her feet, how could she resist, she a grown woman, who saw youth lapsing like a spent wave on the shore of Life, one whose elderly husband could not guess the tumult of nature beating at the doors of her heart, about to close on summer for ever? Seven hundred years ago, such love was romance; not even the dagger of Giovanni had been needed to draw, with its blood, the tears and sympathy of lovers of all ages for Paolo and Francesca. But Francesca in the twentieth century must stand in the witness box for legal luminaries to torture, must hear every nameless act given the label of lust, and finally, hear Paolo fling the insult of age and cunning into her face, and plead the ignorance of youth. And then, when the whole dreadful nightmare was over, another reappearance in a hopeless battle for her child; then peace again, while the world whispers of the disappearance from society of the beautiful Mrs. Graham. But Life would not leave her alone; five years might have brought some healing to a heart that asked forgetfulness. The suicide of the young Earl, with a last love declaration, set the world by the ears again. So he loved her to the last! She laughed almost. He had died for his love of her, said the world. Women envied her the compliment of his suicide. He might have loved her sufficiently to live, she reflected, and once more passed through a nightmare of picture papers; herself as a bride, bathing at Ostend; herself in the box; extracts from the trial; her tears in the last scene, then--God in heaven!--her boy at school, not in the first school he had had to leave, but another, which he would now have to leave. And through it all, as if to excite envy and scandal by obstinacy, her beauty grew, and she remained "the beautiful Mrs. Graham."