"Have I said anything wrong?" he asked.
"Do you mean to look me in the face and tell me that you are not acquainted with her works,—that you don't know pages of them by heart, that you don't sleep with them under your pillow, don't travel about with them in your dressing-bag? I'm afraid we have mistaken you, Mr. Glascock."
"Is it so great a sin?"
"If you'll own up honestly, I'll tell you something,—in a whisper. You have not read a word of her poems?"
"Not a word."
"Neither have I. Isn't it horrible? But, perhaps, if I heard Tennyson talking every day, I shouldn't read Tennyson. Familiarity does breed contempt;—doesn't it? And then poor dear Wallachia is such a bore. I sometimes wonder, when English people are listening to her, whether they think that American girls generally talk like that."
"Not all, perhaps, with that perfected eloquence."
"I dare say you do," continued Olivia, craftily. "That is just the way in which people form their opinions about foreigners. Some specially self-asserting American speaks his mind louder than other people, and then you say that all Americans are self-asserting."
"But you are a little that way given, Miss Spalding."
"Because we are always called upon to answer accusations against us, expressed or unexpressed. We don't think ourselves a bit better than you; or, if the truth were known, half as good. We are always struggling to be as polished and easy as the French, or as sensible and dignified as the English; but when our defects are thrown in our teeth—"