“Not a bit of it,” replied Lionel; “they are quite able to entertain each other. It is we who are the losers, not they, for the invasion of American heiresses upon our Piccadilly shores has vivified our rotten old Society. Lord Petersham used to remark that our girls looked like drowned mermaids at the end of the season, whilst an American maiden was as fresh at Goodwood as she had been at the Private View.”
“Quite true,” said Sinclair, “the American girl is cute, not blasé.”
“Yes,” broke in Lady Carey, “she came over here to have a good time and carried that creed up to the last.”
“They invariably aim straight and high,” continued Lionel, “and the Americans will be the first to attach Royal Guides to their households.”
“I wonder which of our Royal Princes Mrs Pottinger will choose?” said Lady Carey, bursting out laughing. “I cannot help roaring when I think of the vulgar woman entertaining us all in her palace. There she was on deck, full sail and long-winded; for hours she would hold forth on English politics, Christian science, European hotels, with that rhythmical monotony so peculiar to her race.”
“That is just why they will carry the day, if you do not look out,” wistfully remarked Danford; “their memory is always ready to help their fluency.”
“The conversation of an American,” said Sinclair, “resembles a sermon without a text, an address minus the vote of thanks.”
“You know what she called London Society?” inquired Lord Somerville. “She named it her buck-jumper; but she was bent on mastering it, although it kicked and reared as she forced her gilded spurs into its flanks. At times the incongruity of the buck-jumper fairly puzzled her. One thing she could not swallow, that was Society’s meanness. You know what she said to the Duke of Salttown? ‘That England was the country for cheap kindness and expensive frauds.’”
“Ha! ha! ha!” they all laughed.
“Wonderful race!” exclaimed Sinclair, “whether it is the President of the United States, a cowboy, or a fashionable woman, they are all gifted with that intuition which divines ‘friend’ or ‘foe’ in each face they meet; just as the red Indian measures distance with his far-seeing eye, and discovers a white spot on the horizon which is likely to develop into a blizzard. In everything they undertake, they first see the aim, go for it, win it, and sit down afterwards without a flush or a puff.”