She went on. Each word, each new fact, tore something from him that he would have believed part of his nature. Yet he had been prepared for this day by years of training, all designed by this crafty woman to arm him with strength to receive her disclosures. 'What you see,' she said, as they drove through a village, 'seems calm and happy. It is the calmness of repression. Those men in the fields, those working men sitting at the windows--they are all alike unhappy, and they know not why. It is because the natural order has been reversed; the sex which should command and create is compelled to work in blind obedience. You will see, as we go on, that we, who have usurped the power, have created nothing, improved nothing, carried on nothing. It is for you, Lord Chester, to restore the old order.' 'If I can--if I can find words,' he stammered. 'I have trusted you,' the Professor went on, 'from the very first. _Bon sang ne peut mentir._ Yet it was wise not to hurry matters. Your life, and my own life too, if that matters much, hang upon the success of my design. Nothing could have happened more opportunely than the Duchess's proposal. Why? on the one hand, a sweet, charming, delightful girl; and on the other, a repulsive, bad-tempered old woman. While your blood is aflame with love and disgust, Lord Chester, I tell you this great secret. We have three months before us. We must use it, so that in less than two we shall be able to strike, and to strike hard. You are in my hands. We have, first, much to see and to learn.' Their first halt was Windsor. Here, after ordering dinner, the Professor took her pupil to visit Eton. It was half-holiday, and the girls were out of school. Some were at the Debating Society's rooms, where a political discussion was going on; some were strolling by the river under the grand old elms; some were reading novels in the shade; some were lying on the bank talking and laughing. It was a pleasant picture of happy school life. 'Look at these buildings,' said the Professor, taking up a position of vantage. 'They were built by one of your ancestors, beautified by another, repaired and enlarged by another. This is the noblest of the old endowments--for boys.' The Earl looked round him in wonder. 'What would boys do with such a splendid place?' he asked.