“I was thrilled,” she acknowledged. “That was the pleasurable part of it I have been so, used to looking on at shows that bored me, listening to conversations that wearied me, attempting sensations which were repellent, that I just welcomed feeling, when it came--feeling of any sort. I was excited. I forgot everything else. I was so fascinated that I could not look away. But if you ask me whether I liked it, and I have to answer truthfully, I hated it! I felt nothing of the sort at the time, but when I tried to sleep I found myself shivering. It was justice, I know, but it was ugly.” She watched Sir Timothy, as she made her confession, a little wistfully. He said nothing, but there was a very curious change in his expression. He smiled at her in an altogether unfamiliar way. “I suppose,” she said, appealing to him, “that you are very disappointed in me?” “On the contrary,” he answered, “I am delighted.” “You mean that?” she asked incredulously. “I do,” he declared. “Companionship between our sexes is very delightful so far as it goes, but the fundamental differences between a man's outlook and tastes and a woman's should never be bridged over. I myself do not wish to learn to knit. I do not care for the womenkind in whom I am interested to appreciate and understand fighting.” Margaret looked across the table in amazement. “You are most surprising this morning, father,” she declared. “I am perhaps misunderstood,” he sighed, “perhaps have acquired a reputation for greater callousness than I possess. Personally, I love fighting. I was born a fighter, and I should find no happier way of ending my life than fighting, but, to put it bluntly, fighting is a man's job.” “What about women going to see fights at the National Sporting Club?” Lady Cynthia asked curiously. “It is their own affair, but if you ask my opinion I do not approve of it,” Sir Timothy replied. “I am indifferent upon the subject, because I am indifferent upon the subject of the generality of your sex,” he added, with a little smile, “but I simply hold that it is not a taste which should be developed in women, and if they do develop it, it is at the expense of those very qualities which make them most attractive.” Lady Cynthia took a cigarette from her case and leaned over to Francis for a light. “The world is changing,” she declared. “I cannot bear many more shocks. I fancied that I had written myself for ever out of Sir Timothy's good books because of my confession just now.” He smiled across at her. His words were words of courteous badinage, but Lady Cynthia was conscious of a strange little sense of pleasure. “On the contrary,” he assured her, “you found your way just a little further into my heart.” “It seems to me, in a general sort of way,” Margaret observed, leaning back in her chair, “that you and my father are becoming extraordinarily friendly, Cynthia.”