the West."

This Eastern complacency, although it did not lower Mr. Spence in her
estimation, aroused Honora's pride.

"That shows how little New Yorkers know of the West," she replied,
laughing. "Didn't you suppose there were any gentlewomen there?"

"Gentlewomen," repeated Mr. Spence, as though puzzled by the word,
"gentlewomen, yes. But you might have been born anywhere."

Even her sense of loyalty to her native place was not strong enough to
override this compliment.

"I like a girl with some dash and go to her," he proclaimed, and there
could be no doubt about the one to whom he was attributing these
qualities. "Savoir faire, as the French call it, and all that. I don't
know much about that language, but the way you talk it makes Mrs. Holt's
French and Susan's sound silly. I watched you last night when you were
stringing the Vicomte."

"Oh, did you?" said Honora, demurely.

"You may have thought I was talking to Mrs. Robert," he said.

"I wasn't thinking anything about you," replied Honora, indignantly. "And
besides, I wasn't I stringing' the Vicomte. In the West we don't use
anything like so much slang as you seem to use in New York."

"Oh, come now!" he exclaimed, laughingly, and apparently not the least
out of countenance, "you made him think he was the only pebble on the
beach. I have no idea what you were talking about."

"Literature," she said. "Perhaps that was the reason why you couldn't
understand it."

"He may be interested in literature," replied Mr. Spence, "but it
wouldn't be a bad guess to say that he was more interested in stocks and
bonds."

"He doesn't talk about them, at any rate," said Honora.

"I'd respect him more if he did," he announced. "I know those
fellows-they make love to every woman they meet. I saw him eying you at
lunch."

Honora laughed.

"I imagine the Vicomte could make love charmingly," she said.

Mr. Spence suddenly became very solemn.

"Merely as a fellow-countryman, Miss Leffingwell--" he began, when she
sprang to her feet, her eyes dancing, and finished the sentence.

"You would advise me to be on my guard against him, because, although I
look twenty-five and experienced, I am only nineteen and inexperienced.
Thank you."

He paused to light another cigarette before he followed her across the
turf. But she had the incomprehensible feminine satisfaction of knowing,
as they walked homeward, that the usual serenity of his disposition was
slightly ruffled.