no doubt, but your early Briton ceorl or earl would
be as well understood by her. Your New York beauty who has lived in the
market place knows principally the prices of things."

He was not ill pleased with himself. He was putting it well and getting
rather even with her. If this fellow with his shut mouth had a sore spot
hidden anywhere he was giving him "to think." And he would find himself
thinking, while, whatsoever he thought, he would be obliged to continue
to keep his ugly mouth shut. The great idea was to say things WITHOUT
saying them, to set your hearer's mind to saying them for you.

"What strikes one most is a sort of commercial brilliance in her,"
taking up his thread again after a smilingly reflective pause. "It quite
exhilarates one by its novelty. There's spice in it. We English have not
a look-in when we are dealing with Americans, and yet France calls us
a nation of shopkeepers. My impression is that their women take little
inventories of every house they enter, of every man they meet. I heard
her once speaking to my wife about this place, as if she had lived in
it. She spoke of the closed windows and the state of the gardens--of
broken fountains and fallen arches. She evidently deplored the
deterioration of things which represented capital. She has inventoried
Dunholm, no doubt. That will give Westholt a chance. But she will do
nothing until after her next year's season in London--that I'd swear.
I look forward to next year. It will be worth watching. She has been
training my wife. A sister who has married an Englishman and has at
least spent some years of her life in England has a certain established
air. When she is presented one knows she will be a sensation. After
that----" he hesitated a moment, smiling not too pleasantly.

"After that," said Mount Dunstan, "the Deluge."

"Exactly. The Deluge which usually sweeps girls off their feet--but it
will not sweep her off hers. She will stand quite firm in the flood and
lose sight of nothing of importance which floats past."

Mount Dunstan took him up. He was sick of hearing the fellow's voice.

"There will be a good many things," he said; "there will be great
personages and small ones, pomps and vanities, glittering things and
heavy ones."

"When she sees what she wants," said Anstruthers, "she will hold out
her hand, knowing it will come to her. The things which drown will not
disturb her. I once made the blunder of suggesting that she might need