“I see her,” said Stefan. “Obviously, she takes after the other parent. You are alone then. Next question—”
“Oh, isn't it my turn again?” Mary interposed, smilingly.
“It is, but I ask you to waive it. You see, questions about me are so comparatively trivial. What sort of work do you do?”
“Well, I write a little,” she replied, “and I've been a governess and a companion. But I'm really a victim of the English method of educating girls. That's my chief profession—being a monument to its inefficiency,” and she laughed, low and bell-like.
“Tell me about that—I've never lived in England,” he questioned, with eager interest. (“And oh, Pan and Apollo, her voice!” he thought.)
“Well,” she continued, “they bring us up so nicely that we can't do anything—except be nice. I was brought up in a cathedral town, right in the Close, and my dear old Dad, who was a doctor, attended the Bishop, the Dean, and all the Chapter. Mother would not let us go to boarding-school, for fear of 'influences'—so we had governesses at home, who taught us nothing we didn't choose to learn. My sister Isobel married 'well,' as they say, while I was still in the schoolroom. Her husband belongs to the county—”
“What's that?” interrupted Stefan.
“Don't you know what the county is? How delightful! The 'county' is the county families—landed gentry—very ancient and swagger and all that—much more so than the titled people often. It was very great promotion for the daughter of one of the town to marry into the county—or would have been except that Mother was county also.” She spoke with mock solemnity.
“How delightfully picturesque and medieval!” exclaimed Stefan. “The Guelphs and Ghibellines, eh?”
“Yes,” Mary replied, “only there is no feud, and it doesn't seem so romantic when you're in it. The man my sister married I thought was frightfully boring except for his family place, and being in the army, which is rather decent. He talks,” she smiled, “like a phonograph with only one set of records.”