much. I don't mean the quite, quite young who dance with girls, but the
young men. My godmother says they are very hard worked, and in their
leisure they like to have dinners in their regiments--or at
restaurants--with, with other sort of ladies, where they can do what
they please. It seems a little elementary--don't you think so?"

"Jolly common-sense!" said Jack Courtray.

"And then, you see, if by chance, when they are in the world, if they
do fall in love, it is possible for the lady to get a divorce here
without any scandal and fuss, and the whole clan stick to their own
member, no matter how much in the wrong she may be, and so all is
arranged, and life seems much simpler and apparently happier than it is
with us. If it is really so I cannot say, I have not been here long
enough to judge."

"It sounds a kind of Utopia," and Lord Courtray laughed. And just then
the Prince came into the room again, and over to them and they got up
and the two men went off together to examine the foils.

Presently the band arrived and more guests, and soon the contre-danse
was begun. That grown-up people could seriously take pleasure in this
amazing romp was a new and delightful idea to Tamara.

It was a sort of enormous quadrille with numerous figures and
farandole, while one sat on a chair between the figures, as at a
cotillon. And toward the end the company stamped and cried, and the
band sang, and nothing could have been more gay and exciting and wild.

Before they began, the Prince came up to Tamara and said: