" Margaret exclaimed, with a little shudder.

"There was a fight," Sir Timothy repeated, "if you can call it such.
Fields gave him some part of the punishment he deserved."

"And you were there, Cynthia?"

"I left Lady Cynthia in the car," Sir Timothy explained. "She most
improperly bribed my chauffeur to lend her his coat and hat, and
followed me."

"You actually saw the fight, then?" Francis asked.

"I did," Lady Cynthia admitted. "I saw it from the beginning to the
end."

Margaret looked across the table curiously. It seemed to her that her
friend had turned a little paler.

"Did you like it?" she asked simply.

Lady Cynthia was silent for a moment. She glanced at Sir Timothy. He,
too, was waiting for her answer with evident interest.

"I was thrilled," she acknowledged. "That was the pleasurable part of it
I have been so, used to looking on at shows that bored me, listening
to conversations that wearied me, attempting sensations which were
repellent, that I just welcomed feeling, when it came--feeling of any
sort. I was excited. I forgot everything else. I was so fascinated that
I could not look away. But if you ask me whether I liked it, and I have
to answer truthfully, I hated it! I felt nothing of the sort at the
time, but when I tried to sleep I found myself shivering. It was
justice, I know, but it was ugly."

She watched Sir Timothy, as she made her confession, a little wistfully.
He said nothing, but there was a very curious change in his expression.
He smiled at her in an altogether unfamiliar way.

"I suppose," she said, appealing to him, "that you are very disappointed
in me?"

"On the contrary," he answered, "I am delighted."

"You mean that?" she asked incredulously.

"I do," he declared. "Companionship between our sexes is very delightful
so far as it goes, but the fundamental differences between a man's
outlook and tastes and a woman's should never be bridged over. I myself
do not wish to learn to knit. I do not care for the womenkind in whom I
am interested to appreciate and understand fighting."

Margaret looked across the table in amazement.

"You are most surprising this morning, father," she declared.

"I am perhaps misunderstood," he sighed, "perhaps have acquired a
reputation for greater callousness than I possess. Personally, I love
fighting. I was born a fighter, and I should find no happier way of
ending my life than fighting, but, to put it bluntly, fighting is a
man's