Bond Street was crowded with vehicles of all sorts,
from wonderfully upholstered automobiles to the resuscitated victoria.
The shop windows were laden with the treasures of the world, buyers were
plentiful, promenaders multitudinous. Every one seemed to be cheerful
but a little engrossed in the concrete act of living. Nigel almost ran
into Prince Karschoff, at the corner of Grafton Street.
"Dreaming, my friend?" the latter asked quietly, as he laid his hand
upon Nigel's shoulder.
"Guilty," Nigel confessed. "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. Not only that, but there is a difference in the
wares set out in the shops, an absence of taste, if you can understand
what I mean, as though the shopkeepers themselves understood that they
were catering for a new class of people.
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