"I have been brought up myself in a different school," David said quietly, "in the school Richard Vont was brought up in. I see no difference fundamentally between a Marquis and a gamekeeper, and to me the womenkind of the gamekeeper should be as sacred to the Marquis as the womenkind of the Marquis to the gamekeeper." The Duchess laughed good-humouredly. "I have always insisted," she declared, "that America is the most backward country in the world. So many of you come to Europe now, though, that one would have thought you would have attained to a more correct perspective of life. But you are certainly much more amusing as you are. No, be quiet, please," she went on. "I didn't call for you to enter into general discussions. I just wanted to know about Reginald. Of course, you have discovered already that I am ridiculously fond of him, and I am trying to find out what is depressing him so much. Do you know what I am most afraid of?" "I have no idea," David confessed. "The workings of your mind seem to lead you to such unexpected conclusions." "Don't be peevish," she replied. "What I am really more afraid of than anything is that Marcia Hannaway will leave him." "Why?" The Duchess shrugged her shoulders. "She is twenty years younger than Reginald, and she has made for herself an entirely new place in life. That is the wonderful goal a woman reaches who has brains and is enabled to put them to some practical use. She has a circle of friends and admirers and sympathisers, already made. Now Reginald is a dear, but his outlook upon life is almost whimsical, and I have always wondered whether he would be able to hold a woman like this to the end. The only thing is," she concluded ruminatively, "that the affair has been going on for so long, and is so well known, that it would be positively indecent of her to break it off. Don't you think so, Mr. Thain?" David looked at the Duchess and shook his head. "Honestly," he admitted, "I can't give an opinion. I thought I understood something of human nature before I came into touch with you and those few members of your aristocracy whom I have met through you. But frankly, to use a homely metaphor, you take the wind out of my sails. I don't know where I am when you lay down the law. There is something wrong between us fundamentally. I was brought up the same way Vont was brought up. Things were right or wrong, moral or immoral. You people seem to have made laws of your own." "It's time some one revised the old ones," his companion laughed. "However, I can see that you can be no help to me about Reginald, and here we are at the Savoy. By-the-by, I've never seen you except with men. Have you no women friends? Are none of those charming little musical comedy ladies I see through the windows there expecting you as their host?"