“I don’t say that,” replied Mrs. Van Santen, in the slow drawl which Gerard found rather attractive. “I’ve no doubt many of the people who frighten me because I’m not used to them only need to be better known. But it’s just this, Mr. Buckland, when you’ve been used to a quiet, homely kind of life, and you get suddenly plunged into a livelier sort, why, it takes you time for you to feel your feet, you know!”
“Of course it does. But why should you be forced to lead anything but the kind of life you like, and you’re used to?”
“Well, it’s like this,” said the good lady confidentially; “you Britishers think a mighty deal more of the dollars than folks do over on the other side!”
“What!” cried Gerard in amazement. “We always think it’s the other way about!”
She shook her head shrewdly, and brushed back the braids of her grayish hair, which she wore parted in the middle and done in a severely plain knot behind.
“I never knew the value of money,” she said emphatically, “till I came over here. Where we come from there are many who have money, and nobody thinks much of us; but over here we find friends among the smart people, and yet there’s nothing to make us stand out from other folks!”
“I think there is, by what I hear—and what I see,” added Gerard courteously. “Your younger daughter, Miss Cora, has a voice that we very rarely hear except on a professional platform, and everyone says you give entertainments which are unique.”
She laughed.
“I don’t see anything so special about them,” she said simply, “except that perhaps we’re not so stiff as you English people. But I should have thought that was against us, instead of being in our favor!”
He laughed.