Borrowdean shrugged his shoulders.

"I know your perfect woman!" he remarked, softly. "You search for her
through the best years of your life, and when you have found her you
avoid her. That," he added, handing his empty cup to a footman, "is why
I am a bachelor."

The Duchess regarded him complacently.

"My dear Sir Leslie," she said, "I am afraid you will have to find a
better reason for your miserable state. The perfect woman would certainly
have nothing to do with you if you found her."

"On the contrary," he declared, confidently, "I am convinced that she
would find me attractive."

The Duchess shook her head.

"Your theory," she declared, "is antiquated. Like and unlike do not
attract. We seek in others the qualities which we strive most zealously
to develop in ourselves. I know a case in point."

"Good!" Sir Leslie remarked. "I like examples. The logic of them appeals
to me."

The Duchess half closed her eyes. For a moment she was silent. She seemed
to be listening to something a long way off. Through the open windows of
her softly shaded drawing-rooms, odourous with flowers, came the rippling
of water falling from a fountain in the conservatory, the lazy hum of a
mowing machine on the lawn, the distant tinkling of a hansom bell in the