resting to see her: he could not have used a different tone if
he had been speaking of the prime minister or the laureate. Laura was
ignorant of what he had heard of Lady Ringrose; she doubted whether it
could be the same as what she had heard from her brother-in-law: if this
had been the case he never would have mentioned it. She foresaw that his
friends in London would have a good deal to do in the way of telling him
whether this or that were characteristic or not; he would go about in
much the same way that English travellers did in America, fixing his
attention mainly on society (he let Laura know that this was especially
what he wished to go into) and neglecting the antiquities and sights,
quite as if he failed to believe in their importance. He would ask
questions it was impossible to answer; as to whether for instance
society were very different in the two countries. If you said yes you
gave a wrong impression and if you said no you didn't give a right one:
that was the kind of thing that Selina had suffered from. Laura found
her new acquaintance, on the present occasion and later, more
philosophically analytic of his impressions than those of her countrymen
she had hitherto encountered in her new home: the latter, in regard to
such impressions, usually exhibited either a profane levity or a
tendency to mawkish idealism.

Mrs. Berrington called out at last to Laura that she must not stay if
she had prepared herself to go out: whereupon the girl, having nodded
and smiled good-bye at the other members of the circle, took a more
formal leave of Mr. Wendover--expressed the hope, as an American girl
does in such a case, that they should see him again. Selina asked him to
come and dine three days later; which was as much as to say that
relations might be suspended till then. Mr. Wendover took it so, and
having accepted the invitation he departed at the same time as Laura. He
passed out of the house with her and in the street she asked him which
way he was going. He was too tender, but she liked him; he appeared not
to deal in chaff and that was a change that relieved her--she had so
often had to pay out that coin when she felt wretchedly poor. She hoped
he would ask her leave to go with her the way she was going--and this
not on particular but on general grounds. It would be American, it
would remind her of old times; she should like him to be as American as
that. There was no reason for her taking so quick an interest