"They look very attractive," David admitted, smiling back at his companion, "but I am, in reality, lunching alone. I came here because I know my stockbroker lunches every day in the grillroom, and I want to see him." "How pathetic!" she sighed. "I really believe that I have a duty in connection with you." "At any rate," he promised, as he held out his hand, "there is a man here who will serve us some American lobster which is very nearly the real thing." "Don't make me feel too gluttonous," she begged, as she stepped out. "I really am not in the habit of inviting myself to luncheon like this, but the fact of it is--" She hesitated. He passed behind her into the little vestibule. "Well?" "Well, I rather like you, Mr. David Thain," she whispered. "You won't be vain about it, will you, but all the financiers I have ever met have been so extraordinarily full of their money and how they made it. You are different, aren't you?" "I am content if you find me so," he answered, with rare gallantry. David ordered a thoroughly American luncheon, of which his guest heartily approved. "If you Americans," she observed, "only knew how to live as well as you know how to eat, what a nation you would be!" "We fancy that we have some ideas that way, also," he told her. "Wherein do we fail most, from your English point of view?" "In matters of sex," the Duchess replied coolly. "You know so much more about lobster Newburg than you do about women. I suppose it is all this strenuous money-getting that is responsible for your ignorance. No one over here, you see, tries for anything very much." "You certainly all live in a more enervating atmosphere," David admitted. "Tell me about your younger days?" she demanded. "There is nothing to tell in the least interesting," he assured her. "My people were poor. I was sent to Harvard with great difficulty by a relative who kept a boot store. I became a clerk in a railway office, took a fancy to the work and planned out some schemes--which came off." "How much money have you, in plain English?" she asked. "About four millions," he answered. "And what are you going to do with it?" "Buy an estate, for one thing," he replied. "Fortunately, I am very fond of shooting and riding, so I suppose I shall amuse myself." "Are those your only resources?" she enquired, with a faint smile. "I may marry." "Come, this gets more interesting! Any lady in your mind yet?" "None whatever," he assured her, with almost exaggerated firmness. "You'd better give yourself a few years first and then let me choose for you," she suggested. "I know just the type--unless you change." "And why should I change?"