Lauraine colours and remembers. "Well, you deserve a lecture for speaking so. I hate to hear men, especially young men, abusing women! As if the worst of us were not, after all, better than most of you. And what do you know, _really_ know, of women? At your age a man is hardly conscious of what he wants except amusement and excitement; and the woman who gives him these, be her moral nature ever so vile, is the woman from whom he takes his opinions of the whole sex. '_Toujours femme varie_' has a wide meaning. To deduce from _one_ an opinion of all, is the greatest folly a man can commit." "What a tirade!" says Keith amusedly. "I know well enough your sex are enigmas. It is hard to make out what you really are. And I am quite sure that I shall never meet another woman like you; but I hope you don't mean to say that I have formed my opinion from a 'bad' specimen." "I was speaking of men in general," says Lauraine, somewhat hurriedly. "The fashion of talking slightingly of women is a most pernicious one. Certainly we are to blame, or our age, for such a fashion. Women have too little dignity nowadays; but they suffer for it, by losing their own prestige in the sight of men." "You would never lose your self-respect," says Keith, in a low voice. "I should be the most miserable woman alive if I did," she answers composedly; but her cheeks burn, and in her heart she says: "I have lost it--long ago!" "Ah," says Keith bitterly, "it is well to be you. Heaven help you if you had been cast in a weaker mould, like those you condemn; if you had to look back on life as only a _coup manque_." A burst of riotous laughter drowns his words. The whole table is convulsed over some _risqué_ American story told with inimitable point and humour by the lovely rosy lips of "Dresden China." As they part that night Keith whispers in Lauraine's ear: "To-morrow, twelve, I will call." CHAPTER XXIV Lauraine wakes up next morning with a vague consciousness that she has done something wrong, something which she regrets. Why should she have granted this interview to Keith Athelstone? Why should he have asked for it? And yet, amidst all her disquietude, she smiles bitterly as she thinks how far away, how "over and done with," is that old time between them. She is married, he about to be married. There can be nothing to fear now. During breakfast she is silent and preoccupied. She wonders what excuse she can make to Lady Etwynde for breaking a shopping engagement; but, as if fate played into her hands, Lady Etwynde tells her that Colonel Carlisle is coming to drive her to Bond Street that morning to choose some diamonds he has seen, and so the dressmakers must be put off. Lauraine seizes the chance delightedly, and says she will stay at home and have a quiet morning for once, and at half-past eleven Lady Etwynde drives off in her _fiancé's_ mail phaeton, and Lauraine finds herself alone.