"Not many--let us say, at a venture, a hundred. Think of what it means to be one of the hundred most conspicuous women among a population of a hundred millions. The responsibility must be tremendous." "I've never thought of myself as having any particular responsibility--not any more than anybody else." "But, of course, you have. Whatever you do gets an added significance from the fact that you're Mrs. Howard Brokenshire. When, for example, you came to me that day among the rocks at Newport, your kindness was the more wonderful for the simple reason that you were who you were. We can't get away from those considerations. When you do right, right seems somehow to be made more beautiful; and when you do wrong--" "I don't think it's fair to put me in a position like that." "I don't put you in that position. Life does it. You were born to be high up. When you fall, therefore--" "Don't talk about falling." "But it would be a fall, wouldn't it? Don't you remember, some ten or twelve years ago, how a Saxon crown princess left her home and her husband? Well, all I mean is that because of her position her story rang through the world. However one might pity unhappiness, or sympathize with a miserable love, there was something in it that degraded her country and her womanhood. I suppose the poor thing's inability to live up to a position of honor was a blow at human nature. Don't you think that that was what we felt? And in your case--" "You mustn't compare me with her." "No; I don't--exactly. All I mean is that if--if you do what--what I think you've started out to do--" She raised her head defiantly. "And I'm going to." "Then by the day after to-morrow there will not be a newspaper in the country that won't be detailing the scandal. It will be the talk of every club and every fireside between the Atlantic and the Pacific, and Mexico and Montreal. It will be in the papers of London and Paris and Rome and Berlin, and there'll be a week in which you'll be the most discussed person in the world." "I've been that already--almost--when Mr. Brokenshire made his attack in the Stock Exchange on--" "But this would be different. In this case you'd be pointed at--it's what it would amount to--as a woman who had gone over to all those evil forces in civilization that try to break down what the good forces are building up. You'd do like that unhappy crown princess, you'd strike a blow at your country and at all womanhood. There are thousands of poor tempted wives all over Europe and America who'll say: 'Well, if she can do such things--'" "Oh, stop!" I stopped. It seemed to me that for the time being I had given her enough to think about. We sat silent, therefore, looking out at the rushing dark. People who drifted back from the dining-car glanced at us, but soon were dozing or absorbed in books.