"Yes, thank God! And yet we have the intelligent foreigner saying the climate makes our women sexless." He stopped and laughed. "I admit les Américaines don't so universally look on love and marriage as a profession, their only means of settlement in life. But I'll tell you what it is, my friend: the American, with all his outward frankness and naïveté, cares more, like men of other nations, for the thing he doesn't talk about than for things he's always flinging in your face. With people on this side, it's money which is too sacred to be mentioned except on solemn occasions"—he made the slightest possible grimace—"but which is the supreme consideration. With us, the thing we don't talk about, and yet care for the more, is the relation between the sexes, the ideal of a chivalry that the elder world has lost, or, more truly, never had, I think."
"The truth is, you've been long enough away from America to begin to idealize it. By the way, I thought you were of the élite asked to the Château d'Avranchéville this autumn."
"This is better than Normandy," he said, shortly.
"Ah, but think of the dear creatures gathered there?"
"I'd rather think about 'em."
"Mademoiselle Lucie this time, hein?"
"Oh no—only that I don't love my kind."
De Poincy shook his head.
"That you don't love that kind shows you're getting blasé."
Gano sat up, and fixed his dark eyes on his friend's face.