cated, too, sophisticated
enough to have cherished my flavours as a gourmet tries to save the
bouquet of old wine. You think that the Tower is the pleasure of
housemaids on a Bank Holiday. But it quite makes me quiver to think
of it," laughing again. "That I laugh, is the sign that I am not
as beautifully, freshly capable of enjoyment as those genuine first
Americans were, and in a way I am sorry for it."

Mrs. Worthington laughed also, and with an enjoyment.

"You are very clever, Betty," she said.

"No, no," answered Bettina, "or, if I am, almost everybody is clever in
these days. We are nearly all of us comparatively intelligent."

"You are very interesting at all events, and the Anstruthers will exult
in you. If they are dull in the country, you will save them."

"I am very interested, at all events," said Bettina, "and interest like
mine is quite passe. A clever American who lives in England, and is the
pet of duchesses, once said to me (he always speaks of Americans as if
they were a distant and recently discovered species), 'When they first
came over they were a novelty. Their enthusiasm amused people, but now,
you see, it has become vieux jeu. Young women, whose specialty was to be
excited by the Tower of London and Westminster Abbey, are not novelties
any longer. In fact, it's been done, and it's done FOR as a specialty.'
And I am excited about the Tower of London. I may be able to restrain
my feelings at the sight of the Beef Eaters, but they will upset me a
little, and I must brace myself, I must indeed."

"Truly, Betty?" said Mrs. Worthington, regarding her with curiosity,
arising from a faint doubt of her entire seriousness, mingled with a
fainter doubt of her entire levity.

Betty flung out her hands in a slight, but very involuntary-looking,
gesture, and shook her head.

"Ah!" she said, "it was all TRUE, you know. They were all horribly
real--the things that were shuddered over and sentimentalised about.
Sophistication, combined with imagination, makes them materialise again,
to me, at least, now I am here. The gulf between a historical figure and
a man or woman who could bleed and cry out in human words was broad when
one was at school. Lady Jane Grey, for instance, how nebulous she was
and how little one cared. She seemed invented merely to add a detail
to one's lesson in English history. But, as we drove across Waterloo
Bridge, I caught a glimpse of the Tower, and what do you suppose I began
t