"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?