n quarters. I refer to the
really old families among the landed aristocracy. Some of them have not
changed essentially, in their attitude towards the world in general,
since the reign of Queen Elizabeth. They make of family a fetish. They
are ready to sacrifice everything upon the altar of family. They may
exhibit this pride of race less obviously than some of the French or
Germans or Italians; but they have a deeper sense of their own dignity,
and of what is due to it, than any of your more flighty and picturesque
continentals. There are certain things that are done. Certain things
are not done. One must conform or----"

She interrupted herself and delicately flicked the ash from her
cigarette.

"Conform, or be jolly well damned," she finished, crossing one leg over
the other and leaning back in her chair. "This, by the way, is the
only decent cigarette I have found in America. I hate to smoke
perfume--I like tobacco--and most of your shops seem to keep nothing
but the highly scented Turkish and Egyptian varieties."

"They were made in London," said Cleggett, bowing.

"Ah! But where was I? Oh, yes--one must conform. Especially if one
belongs to, or has married into, the Claiborne family. Of all the men
in England the Earl of Claiborne is the most conservative, the most
reactionary, the most deeply encrusted with prejudice. He would stop
at little where the question concerned the prestige of the aristocracy
in general; he would stop at nothing where the Claiborne family is
concerned.

"I am telling you all this so that you may get an inkling of the blow
it was to him when I became a militant suffragist. It was blow enough
to his nephew, Sir Archibald, my late husband. The Earl maintains that
it hastened poor Archibald's death. But that is ridiculous. Archibald
had undermined his constitution with dissipation, and died following an
operation for gravel. He was to have succeeded to the title, as both
of the Earl's legitimate sons were dead without issue--one of them
perished in the Boer War, and the other was killed in the hunting field.

"Upon Archibald's death the old Earl publicly acknowledged Reginald
Maltravers, his natural son, and took steps to have him legitimatized.
For all of the bend sinister upon his escutcheon, Reginald Maltravers
was as fanatical concerning the family as his father. Perhaps more
fanatical, because he secretly suffered for the irregularity of his own
position in the wo