d
atrophied every sense save that of self-preservation. An open rupture,
such as she feared might take place if she asserted her shadowy
authority, was not to be dreamed of. What was to be done? Small
wonder, then, that she should tackle her fish vindictively.

"Are you angry because Fitzroy is occupying the same hotel as
ourselves?" asked Cynthia at last.

The girl had amused herself by watching the small coteries of
stiff and starched Britons scattered throughout the room; she was
endeavoring to classify the traveled and the untraveled by varying
degrees of frigidity. As it happened, she was wholly wrong in her
rough analysis. The Englishman who has wandered over the map is, if
anything, more self-contained than his stay-at-home brother. He is
often a stranger in his own land, and the dozen most reserved men
present that evening were probably known by name and deed throughout
the widest bounds of the empire.

But, though eyes and brain were busy, she could not help noticing Mrs.
Devar's taciturn mood. That a born gossip, a retailer of personal
reminiscences confined exclusively to "the best people," should eat
stolidly for five consecutive minutes, seemed somewhat of a miracle,
and Cynthia, as was her habit, came straight to the point.

Mrs. Devar managed to smile, pouting her lips in wry mockery of the
suggestion that a chauffeur's affairs should cause her any uneasiness
whatsoever.

"I was really thinking of our tour," she lied glibly. "I am so sorry
you missed seeing Salisbury Cathedral. Why was the route altered?"

"Because Fitzroy remarked that the cathedral would always remain at
Salisbury, whereas a perfect June day in the New Forest does not come
once in a blue moon when one really wants it."

"For a person of his class he appears to say that sort of thing rather
well."

Cynthia's arched eyebrows were raised a little.

"Why do you invariably insist on the class distinction?" she cried.
"I have always been taught that in England the barrier of rank is
being broken down more and more every day. Your society is the easiest
in the world to enter. You tolerate people in the highest circles
who would certainly suffer from cold feet if they showed up too
prominently in New York or Philadelphia; isn't it rather out of
fashion to be so exclusive?"

"Our aristocracy has such an assured position that it can afford to
unbend," quoted the other.

"Oh, is that it? I heard my father say the other day that it h