“The Duchess of Middlesex?” asked Amelie.
“Yes; and she is quite certain to ask you if you know Lady Creighton, that dreadful countrywoman of yours who is climbing into London like a monkey and hopping about it like a flea. She tried to patronize Alice, and Alice won’t get over it either in this world or the next. So tell her that Lady Creighton is not received in New York—which I believe is the case, isn’t it?—and look very much surprised at the idea of knowing her. I can’t tell you how important that is.”
Amelie frowned slightly.
“But Elsie Creighton telephoned to me half an hour ago,” she said, “asking me to lunch with her to-morrow to meet——”
“It doesn’t matter whom she asked you to meet. If she asked you to meet the entire Royal Family, you would be wise to refuse. You don’t want to climb into London on the top of a hurdy-gurdy.”
“My! What’s a hurdy-gurdy?” asked Amelie, whose English lessons had not taught her that word.
“Hurdy-gurdy? Street organ. It doesn’t matter. You don’t want to know people, if you understand; you want to make people want to know you. My plan is not that you should climb up, but that you should spread down.”
Amelie instantly caught this.
“I see,” she said. “I’m to begin at the top. But Elsie Creighton said there was a Prince coming to lunch to-morrow. I thought that was a good beginning.”
“Not so good as the Creighton woman is bad. Did you accept, by the way?”