Already she was beginning to resent the influence which he was establishing over her.

The art of badinage in which she was so proficient stood her in no stead.

Words, even the power of light speech, had deserted her.
"Tell me about the changes that you see," she asked.
"Perhaps," he replied, after a moment's hesitation, "it is because I am an occasional visitor that differences seem so marked to me, but look at the tables there.

That is the Duke of Illinton, is it not?
At the next table, the man in the strange clothes and uncomfortable hat--it seems to me that I have seen him somewhere under different circumstances." Maggie nodded.
"Life is a terrible hotchpotch nowadays," she admitted.

"After the war, our gentry and aristocracy who were not wealthy were taxed out of existence.