“What do you think she found?”

“What would a rich girl find out there in America?  I don’t know.  I haven’t the material to guess with.  In London a girl might find a considerable variety of active, interesting men, rising politicians, university men of distinction, artists and writers even, men of science, men—­there are still such men—­active in the creative work of the empire.

“In America I suppose there is at least an equal variety, made up of rather different types.  She would find that life was worth while to such people in a way that made the ordinary entertainments and amusements of her life a monstrous silly waste of time.  With the facility of her sex she would pick up from one of them the idea that made life worth while for him.  I am inclined to think there was someone in her case who did seem to promise a sort of life that was worth while.  And that somehow the war came to alter the look of that promise.

“How?”

“I don’t know.  Perhaps I am only romancing.  But for this young woman I am convinced this expedition to Europe has meant experience, harsh educational experience and very profound mental disturbance.  There have been love experiences; experiences that were something more than the treats and attentions and proposals that made up her life when she was sheltered over there.  And something more than that.  What it is I don’t know.  The war has turned an ugly face to her.  She has seen death and suffering and ruin.  Perhaps she has seen people she knew killed.  Perhaps the man has been killed.  Or she has met with cowardice or cruelty or treachery where she didn’t expect it.  She has been shocked out of the first confidence of youth.  She has ceased to take the world for granted.  It hasn’t broken her but it has matured her.  That I think is why history has become real to her.  Which so attracts you in her.  History, for her, has ceased to be a fabric of picturesque incidents; it is the study of a tragic struggle that still goes on.  She sees history as you see it and I see it.  She is a very grown-up young woman.

“It’s just that,” said Sir Richmond.  “It’s just that.  If you see as much in Miss Grammont as all that, why don’t you want to come on with us?  You see the interest of her.”

“I see a lot more than that.  You don’t know what an advantage it is to be as I am, rather cold and unresponsive to women and unattractive and negligible—­negligible, that is the exact word—­to them.  You can’t look at a woman for five minutes without losing sight of her in a mist of imaginative excitement.  Because she looks back at you.  I have the privilege of the negligible—­which is a cool head.  Miss Grammont has a startled and matured mind, an original mind.  Yes.  And there is something more to be said.  Her intelligence is better than her character.”

“I don’t quite see what you are driving at.”