"You are an observant man, Prince.

Tell me whether anything strikes you about the Bond Street of to-day, compared with the Bond Street of, say, ten years ago ?" The Russian glanced around him curiously.

He himself was a somewhat unusual figure in his distinctively cut morning coat, his carefully tied cravat, his silk hat, black and white check trousers and faultless white spats.
"A certain decline of elegance," he murmured.

"And is it my fancy or has this country become a trifle Americanised as regards the headgear of its men ?" Nigel smiled.
"I believe our thoughts are moving in the same groove," he said.

"To me there seems to be a different class of people here, as though the denizens of West Kensington, suddenly enriched, had come to spend their money in new quarters.