"She left New York several weeks ago,--didn't you know it?
Dear me!--I thought everybody was convulsed at the news!" The speaker, a young woman fashionably attired and seated in a rocking chair in the verandah of a favourite summer hotel on Long Island, raised her eyes and shrugged her shoulders expressively as she uttered these words to a man standing near her with a newspaper in his hand.

He was a very stiff-jointed upright personage with iron grey hair and features hard enough to suggest their having been carved out of wood.
"No--I didn't know it"-- he said, enunciating his words in the deliberate dictatorial manner common to a certain type of American--"If I had I should have taken steps to prevent it." "You can't take steps to prevent anything Morgana Royal decides to do!" declared his companion.

"She's a law to herself and to nobody else.

I guess YOU couldn't stop her, Mr.Sam Gwent!" Mr.Sam Gwent permitted himself to smile.

It was a smile that merely stretched the corners of his mouth a little,--it had no geniality.
"Possibly not!" he answered--"But I should have had a try! I should certainly have pointed out to her the folly of her present adventure." "Do you know what it is ?" He paused before replying.
"Well,--hardly! But I have a guess!" "Is that so?
Then I'll admit you're cleverer than I am!" "Thats a great compliment! But even Miss Lydia Herbert, brilliant woman of the world as she is, doesn't know EVERYTHING!" "Not quite!" she replied, stifling a tiny yawn--"Nor do you! But most things that are worth knowing I know.