"She knew you, Betty."

"Well, suppose I did help her a little--I was only a kind of reference.
She did the rest. She's set a half-dozen fashions herself--pure genius.
She was born to lead. Her turnouts were always a little smarter, her
horses travelled a little faster, than other people's. She took risks,
too, but she didn't play a game; she only wanted to do things well. We
all gasped when she brought Adelaide to recite from 'Romeo and Juliet' at
an evening party, but all London did the same the week after."

"She discovered, and the Duchess of Snowdon applied the science.
Ah, Betty, don't think I don't agree. She has the gift. She has
temperament. No woman should have temperament. She hasn't scope enough
to wear it out in some passion for a cause. Men are saved in spite of
themselves by the law of work. Forty comes to a man of temperament,
and then a passion for a cause seizes him, and he is safe. A woman of
temperament at forty is apt to cut across the bows of iron-clad
convention and go down. She has temperament, has my lady yonder, and I
don't like the look of her eyes sometimes. There's dark fire smouldering
in them. She should have a cause; but a cause to a woman now-a-days
means 'too little of pleasure, too much of pain,' for others."

"What was your real cause, Windlehurst? You had one, I suppose, for
you've never had a fall."

"My cause? You ask that? Behold the barren figtree! A lifetime in my
country's service, and you who have driven me home from the House in your
own brougham, and told me that you understood--oh, Betty!"