"Gentleman! O Lord!" He became kindly and coaxing, leaning across the table with an ingratiating smile. "Look here, little Alix! Don't you think that for my sake it's time you were beginning to drop that lot?" Though I revolted against the expression, I pretended to see nothing amiss. "You mean just as Libby Jaynes had to drop the barbers and the pages in the hotel when she became Mrs. Tracy Allen." He laughed nervously. "Oh, I don't go as far as that. And yet if I did--" "It wouldn't be too far." I gave him the impression that I was thinking the question out. "But you see, Hugh, dear, I don't see any difference between Mr. Strangways--" "And me?" "I wasn't going to say you, but between Mr. Strangways and the people you'd like me to know. Or rather, if I do see a difference it's that Mr. Strangways is so much more a man of the world than--than--" Perceiving my embarrassment, he broke in: "Than who?" I took my courage in both hands. "Than Mr. Rossiter, for example, or your brother, Mr. Jack Brokenshire, or any of the men I met when I was with your sister. If I hadn't seen you--the truest gentleman I ever knew--I shouldn't have supposed that any of them belonged to the real great world at all." To my relief he took this good-naturedly. "That's what we call social inexperience, little Alix. It's because you don't know how to distinguish." "That is, I don't know a good thing when I see it." "You don't know that sort of good thing--the American who counts. But you can learn. And if you learn you've got to take as a starting-point the fact that, just as there are things one does and things one doesn't do, so there are people one knows and people one doesn't know--and no one can tell you the reason why." "But if one asked for a reason--" "It would queer you with the right people. They don't want a reason. If people do want a reason--well, they've got to stay out of it. It was one of the things Libby Jaynes picked up as if she'd been born to it. She knew how to cut; she knew how to cut dead; and she cut as dead as she knew how." "But, Hugh, darling, I don't know how." He was all forbearance. "You'll learn, sweet." As for the moment the waitress was absent, he put out his hand and locked his fingers within mine. "You've got it in you. Once you've had a chance you'll knock Libby Jaynes into a cocked hat." I shook my head. "I'm not sure that you're right." "I know I'm right, if you do as I tell you: and to begin with you've got to put that fellow Strangways in his place." I let it go at that, having so many other things to think of that any mere status of my own became of no importance. I was willing that Hugh should marry me as Tracy Allen married Libby Jaynes, or in any other way, so long as I could play my part in the rest of the drama with right-mindedness. But it was precisely that that grew more difficult.