d me to have a good
time. But you are not supposed to want introductions in London. You are
supposed to know enough men to dance with, or you wouldn't be there. And
the men don't like it. I often heard Dick and Humphrey apologising to
their friends for asking them to dance with me. You know the sort of
thing, Muriel: 'You might take a turn with my little sister, old man, if
you've nobody better. She's up here on the spree and she don't know
anybody.'"

"O Cicely, they wouldn't give you away like that."

"Perhaps not quite as bad as that. Dick and Humphrey are nice enough as
brothers, and I believe they're proud of me too, in a way. They always
danced with me themselves, and they always noticed what I was wearing,
and said I looked a topper. I know I looked all right, but directly I
opened my mouth I gave myself away, just like a maid in her mistress's
clothes."

"O Cicely!"

"Well, it was like that. I had nothing to talk about. I don't know
London; I can't talk scandal about people I don't know. Of course I had
to tell them I had always lived in the country, and then they began to
talk about hunting at once. Then I had to say that I didn't hunt, and
then they used to look at me through their eyeglasses, and wonder what
the deuce I did do with myself. The fact is, that I can't do anything.
Even the ones with brains--there _were_ a few of them--who tried me with
things besides hunting, couldn't get anything out of me, because there
is nothing to get. I've never been anywhere or seen anything. I don't
know anything--nothing about books or pictures or music or plays. Why on
earth _should_ they want to talk to me? Hardly any of them did twice,
unless it was those who thought I was pretty and wanted to flirt with
me. I felt such a _fool_!"

She was almost in tears. Her pretty face under its white motor-cap was
flushed; she twisted her gloves in her slender hands.

"O Cicely, darling!" said Muriel sympathetically, "you are awfully
bright and clever, really. You've many more brains than I have."

"I'm not clever, but I've got as many brains as other girls. And what
chance have I ever had of learning anything? Dick and Humphrey and
Walter were all sent to Eton and Oxford or Cambridge. They have all had
the most expensive education that any boys could have, and as long as
they behaved themselves pretty well, nobody cared in the least whether
they took advantage of it or not. What education have _I_ had? Miss
Bird! I don'