"Through your divorce," he said practically.
"But you're Westboro's friend," she stammered, and he repudiated with just a little hesitation in his voice:
"Oh, not so much as yours. But I'm the friend of both of you in this. It's the best thing all round."
The gentleman's attitude so baffled her, he was so serious, and yet he took it so lightly, apparently, that she was obliged to believe he meant what he said.
"You talked to me very differently," she reminded him, and he shrugged.
"Oh, I've been far too emotional and unpractical. I'm going henceforth to look at things from the worldly and conventional stand-point."
She put out her hand beseechingly. "Oh, leave that for the rest of us. It quite spoils you."
"I don't pretend to think—" He made his gaze small as he looked past her in an attitude of reflection. "Oh, I don't claim that, it's an ideal way of looking at things. But there is not much idealism in the modern divorce, is there?"
The Duchess took a turn across the floor, twisting her fair hands together, then came round to his side and sat down on a low chair near him.
"Are you quite serious?" she asked. "But I know that you are not. Let me at least think so. Your words shock me horribly"—and she looked piteously at him. "I have felt you to be such a gentle person, and yours is such an understanding atmosphere."