"Toye, his name was. Hilton Toye."
"An American man! Oh, but I know him very well," said Blanche in a tone both strained and cordial. "He's great fun, Mr. Toye, with his delightful Americanisms, and the perfectly delightful way he says them!"
Cazalet puckered like the primitive man he was, when taken at all by surprise; and that anybody, much less Blanche, should think Toye, of all people, either "delightful" or "great fun" was certainly a surprise to him, if it was nothing else. Of course it was nothing else, to his immediate knowledge; still, he was rather ready to think that Blanche was blushing, but forgot, if indeed he had been in a fit state to see it at the time, that she had paid himself the same high compliment across the gate. On the whole, it may be said that Cazalet was ruffled without feeling seriously disturbed as to the essential issue which alone leaped to his mind.
"Where did you meet the fellow?" he inquired, with the suitable admixture of confidence and amusement.
"In the first instance, at Engelberg."
"Engelberg! Where's that?"
"Only one of those places in Switzerland where everybody goes nowadays for what they call winter sports."
She was not even smiling at his arrogant ignorance; she was merely explaining one geographical point and another of general information. A close observer might have thought her almost anxious not to identify herself too closely with a popular craze.
"I dare say you mentioned it," said Cazalet, but rather as though he was wondering why she had not.
"I dare say I didn't! Everything won't go into an annual letter. It was the winter before last—I went out with Betty and her husband."