"Oh, come now, Lord Stranleigh, aren't you just putting it on a little?"
"Putting what on?"
"This pretence of immunity."
"Immunity from what?"
"From the dangers or delights that pertain to feminine loveliness."
"Oh, that! Naturally I am a most susceptible fellow, but women do not like me."
The Professor laughed derisively.
"Tell that to the marines," he said.
"What else am I doing? You'll be a marine to-morrow. I'm a marine already. But what I'm telling you is perfectly true. That's one reason I never go to Homburg, or Baden-Baden, or Wiesbaden, or Marienbad, or any of those fashionable places in summer. There's Charlie Belmont, for instance; every summer he goes to whatever spot the King chooses as a Royal residence pro tem., and he tells me he has the time of his life. Of course, he's a Duke, and I'm only an Earl."
"Don't boast. You're no Earl; you're merely a fisherman."
"True. I had forgotten for the moment. Well, Belmont paints the delights of society in most entrancing hues, but he's popular with the women. You see, I don't know how to talk to them. I'd speak to a woman as if she were a man, and quite reasonably she doesn't like that. Remember what
