"It is just my painful efforts to understand," he protested. "Any one but an idiot would have understood long ago," she retorted. David turned to his left-hand neighbour. "The Duchess is being unkind," he said. "Will you please take some notice of me?" "I'd love to," she replied. "I was just thinking that you were rather neglecting me. I want to know all about America, please, and American people." "I am afraid," he told her, "that I know much more about America than I do about American people. All my life, since I left Harvard, I have been busy making money. I never went into Society over there. I never accepted an invitation if I could help it. When I had any time to spare I went and camped out, up in the Adirondacks, or further afield still, when I could. We had lots of sport, and we were able to lead a simple life, well away from the end of the cable." "And you killed bears and things, I suppose?" she said. "How lucky that you are fond of sport! It makes living in England so easy." He smiled. "I am not so sure," he confessed, "that I should consider England quite so much of a sporting country as she thinks herself." "What heresy!" the Marquis exclaimed, leaning forward. "Of course, I didn't know that I was going to be overheard," David said good-humouredly, "but I must stick to it. I mean, of course, sport as apart from games." "Shooting?" the Marquis queried. "I am afraid I don't consider that shooting at birds, half of them hand-reared, is much of a sport," David continued. "Have you ever tried pig-sticking, or lying on the edge of a mountain after three hours' tramp, watching for the snout of a bear?" Letitia had broken off her conversation with Lord Charles and was leaning a little forward. The Marquis nodded sympathetically. "Hunting, then?" David smiled. "You gallop over a pastoral country on a highly-trained animal, with a pack of assistant hounds to destroy one miserable, verminous creature," he said. "Of course, you take risks now and then, and the whole thing looks exceedingly nice on a Christmas card, but for thrills, for real, intense excitement, I prefer the mountain ledge and the bear, or the rounding up of a herd of wild elephants." "Mr. Thain preserves the instincts of the savage," the Duchess observed, as she sipped her wine. "Perhaps he may be right. Civilisation certainly tends to emasculate sport." "The sports to which Mr. Thain has alluded," the Marquis pointed out, "are the sports of the stay-at-home Englishman. Most of our younger generation--those whose careers permitted of it--have tried their hand at big game shooting. I myself," he continued reminiscently, "have never felt quite the same with a shotgun and a stream of pheasants, since a very wonderful three weeks I had in my youth, tiger hunting in India.--I see that Letitia is trying to catch your eye, Caroline."