"I like examples.

The logic of them appeals to me." The Duchess half closed her eyes.

For a moment she was silent.

She seemed to be listening to something a long way off.

Through the open windows of her softly shaded drawing-rooms, odourous with flowers, came the rippling of water falling from a fountain in the conservatory, the lazy hum of a mowing machine on the lawn, the distant tinkling of a hansom bell in the Square.