"You're different," she replied. "You don't belong to my world. That's what pleases me in you. You haven't got that silly air of always being ready to lay down your life for me. You didn't come in this morning with a bunch of expensive orchids, and beg that I should deign to accept them." She pointed to various bouquets in the room. "You just came in and shook hands, and asked me how I was." "I never thought of bringing any flowers," I said awkwardly. "Just so. That's the point. That's what I like. If there is one thing that I can't tolerate, and that I have to tolerate, it's 'attentions,' especially from people who copy their deportment from Russian Archdukes." "There are Archdukes?" "Why! the air is thick with them. Why do men think that a woman is flattered by their ridiculous 'attentions?' If they knew how sometimes I can scarcely keep from laughing! There are moments when I would give anything to be back again in the days when I knew no one more distinguished than a concierge. There was more sincerity at my disposal then." "But surely all distinguished people are not insincere?" "They are insincere to opera singers who happen to be young, beautiful, and rich, which is my sad case. The ways of the people who flutter round a theatre are not my ways. I was brought up simply, as you were in your Devonshire home. I hate to spend my life as if it was one long diplomatic reception. Ugh!" She clenched her hands, and one of the threads of the necklace gave way, and the pearls scattered themselves over her lap. "There! That necklace was given to me by one of my friends!" She paused. "Yes?" I said tentatively. "He is dead now. You have heard--everyone knows--that I was once engaged to Lord Clarenceux. He was a friend. He loved me--he died--my friends have a habit of dying. Alresca died." The conversation halted. I wondered whether I might speak of Lord Clarenceux, or whether to do so would be an indiscretion. She began to collect the pearls. "Yes," she repeated softly, "he was a friend." I drew a strange satisfaction from the fact that, though she had said frankly that he loved her, she had not even hinted that she loved him. "Lord Clarenceux must have been a great man," I said.