But the struggle has commenced, and
in the end I shall win."
"Lucille herself--" Helene began hesitatingly.
"Lucille is, I firmly believe, as anxious to return to me as I am
anxious to have her," Mr. Sabin said.
Helene threw up her hands.
"It is bewildering," she exclaimed.
"It must seem so to you," Mr. Sabin admitted.
"I wish that Lucille were anywhere else," Helene said. "The Dorset
House set, you know, although they are very smart and very
exclusive, have a somewhat peculiar reputation. Lady Carey,
although she is such a brilliant woman, says and does the most
insolent, the most amazing things, and the Prince of Saxe Leinitzer
goes everywhere in Europe by the name of the Royal libertine. They
are powerful enough almost to dominate society, and we poor people
who abide by the conventions are absolutely nowhere beside them.
They think that we are bourgeois because we have virtue, and
prehistoric because we are not decadent."
"The Duke--" Mr. Sabin remarked.
"Oh, the Duke is quite different, of course," Helene admitted.
"He is a fanatical Tory, very stupid, very blind to anything except
his beloved Primrose League. How he came to lend himself to the
vagaries of such a set I cannot imagine."
Mr. Sabin smiled.
"C'est la femme toujours!" he remarked. "His Grace is, I fear,
henpecked, and the Duchess herself is the sport of cleverer people.
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