"There is that, you know," she faltered.
The Marquis nodded.
"My great fear," he continued, "is that sometimes I am too much inclined to treat you as a contemporary, and to forget that you have never known those things which are a part of every woman's life. I must give Mr. Borden the credit for having had the good taste not to mention them."
"Oh, Jimmy isn't a cad," she answered, "but, without mentioning them, I cannot understand what he came to you for. As regards the other things you have spoken of, I don't care a rap about them, in fact I love my independence. I go where I choose, I have found no one indisposed to make my acquaintance, and the more I see of life—such life as comes to me—the more I love it. When Jim—Mr. Borden—uses such arguments, he bores me. They are directly against him instead of for him. If I were Mrs. James Borden, people would leave cards upon me and I should have to eat dinners with fellow-publishers' wives, and exchange calls, and waste many hours of my life in all the tomfoolery of middle-class respectable living. It doesn't appeal to me, Reginald. He is an idiot not to realise it."
"What does appeal to you, then?" he asked.
"That," she answered, moving her head backwards.
They crossed Battersea Bridge in silence.
"It's such a silly, ordinary problem," she went on presently, "and yet it's so difficult. It's either now or never, you know, Reginald. I shall say good-by to the thirties before long."
"It is your problem," he said sadly, "not mine."
She held his fingers in hers.