"Miss Burroughs. You must remember her."
He noted it as characteristic that she said, quite sincerely: "Oh, so it is. I didn't remember her. That is the girl you were engaged to."
"Yes—'the nice girl uptown,'" said he.
"I didn't like her," said Dorothy, with evident small interest in the subject. "She was vain."
"You mean you didn't like her way of being vain," suggested Norman. "Everyone is vain; so, if we disliked for vanity we should dislike everyone."
"Yes, it was her way. And just now she spoke to us both, as if she were doing us a favor."
"Gracious, it's called," said he. "What of it? It does us no harm and gives her about the only happiness she's got."
Norman, without seeming to do so, noted the rest of the Burroughs party. At Josephine's right sat a handsome young foreigner, and it took small experience of the world to discover that he was paying court to her, and that she was pleased and flattered. Norman asked the waiter who he was, and learned that he came from the waiter's own province of France, was the Duc de Valdome. At first glance Norman had thought him distinguished. Afterward he discriminated. There are several kinds or degrees of distinction. There is distinction of race, of class, of family, of dress, of person. As Frenchman, as aristocrat, as a scion of the ancient family of Valdome, as a specimen of tailoring and valeting, Miss Burroughs's young man was distinguished. But in his own proper person he was rather insignificant. The others at the table were Americans. Following Miss Burroughs's cue, they sought an opportunity to speak friendlily to Norman—and he gave it them. His acknowledgment of those effusive salutations was polite but restrained.
"They are friends of yours?" said Dorothy.