“So I understand.”

“Who told you?”

“Elsie Coningsby.”

“You seem to have got a good deal of information about me all of a sudden.”

“Because you’ve dropped right into the little circle in which we all know one another with a kind of village-like intimacy. New York is really a congeries of villages.”

“But any one could see that Cantyre would never make a husband for a high-spirited girl like Miss Barry.”

“How do you know she’s high-spirited, if it’s not a rude question?”

“Oh, one can tell.”

“You’ve seen her only twice. You must have noticed her very particularly.”