“Is she so beautiful?” asked Lewis.

“Beautiful?  Oh, no,” said the lady, and then suddenly stopped and straightened.  She laughed.  “Now I look back on it all, it seems she must be beautiful, but—­but I know she isn’t.  Now I’m talking nonsense.”

“No, you ’re not,” said Lewis.  “There are women like that.”  He reached out for his hat and stick.

“You’re not going?” said the lady.  “You’ll stay to tea?”

Lewis shook his head.

“You’ve been very kind,” he said, “but I must be going.”

Without rising, she took the hand that he held out and then sat and watched his erect figure swing down the drive to the gate.  Suddenly she remembered him.  They had been together in school.  She did not call him back.  Bores are people that misjudge the values of impressions.  The lady was not a bore; she was a wise woman.

By traveling overland to Rio, Lewis caught the newest and finest of the big steam-packets plying between Buenos Aires and Southampton.  This old world of his had been moving apace in more ways than one.  The years since, with his father, he had made this same trip were comparatively few, but during them progress had more than taken a long stride; it had crossed a line.

He dressed for dinner at eight.  As he stepped into the dining-room, he paused and stared.  It was like walking into some smart London restaurant after the theater.  Gone were the long ship-boards at which for generations human beings had been lined up like cattle at a trough.  In their place were scattered small tables, round and square, of a capacity varying from two to eight.

Around the tables wealth rioted.  There were wealthy coffee-planters, who spent a yearly fortune on their annual trip to Paris, surrounded by their wives and such of their offspring as were old enough to escape the nursery table; planters, sheep- and cattle-men from the Argentine, some of them married, all accompanied; and women.  Lewis had never before seen so many beautiful women at one time.  It was the boat of the season.  Over all hung an atmosphere of vintage wines.

Lewis was shown to a seat at a table for two.  His vis-a-vis was a rare, lonely little man.  The black studs in his shirt seemed to explain him.  He was sour and morose till he found Lewis could speak French, then he bubbled over with information.  It transpired that the room was alive with situations.

“This is a crowded boat, but see the lady over there?”

Lewis’s eyes followed the speaker’s backward nod.  He saw a remarkably beautiful blonde in evening dress sitting alone at a table for four.  She kept her eyes steadily on her plate.

“We call her the Duchess,” continued the little man.  “She belongs to De la Valla, the sugar king.  He’s got his daughters with him, so she had to sit at another table, and he paid four passages for her so she’d be kept alone.”

Lewis nodded politely.