But Mrs. Kaye, irritated, or having reached the conclusion that the newcomer was not in the very least worth while, said with soft fervor to her who was: "How delightful that dear Jack was returned! Of course you are as interested in his career as the rest of us."
"I should be a good deal more so if his mother had turned him across her knee a little oftener—or if I could shake him myself occasionally."
Isabel, satisfied, more amazed than ever at the infantile ingenuousness of the snob, rose, and was about to turn away when she met Lady Cecilia's eyes. They were full of amusement, and there was no mistaking its purport. In a flash Isabel had responded with a challenge of appeal, which that accomplished dame was quick to understand.
"Please don't go," she said. "I came over here to talk to you. We are all so interested in the idea that Vicky is half an American—we had quite forgotten it. Did you ever see any one look less as if she had American cousins than Vicky? She might easily have a whole tribe of Spanish ones."
"Well, she has, in a way." And in response to many questions Isabel found herself relating the story of Rezánov and Concha Argüello, while Mrs. Kaye, whatever may have been her sensations, rose with an absent smile and composedly transferred herself to an equally distinguished neighborhood.
"I wonder if she has ever tried to condense rudeness into an epigram," said Isabel viciously, pausing in her narrative.
Lady Cecilia shook expressively. "At least she has not made an art of it," she said. "They never do."
VI
The next morning, Isabel, after little sleep, rose early and went out for a walk. She had sat up until eleven, listening to the puzzling jets of conversation, or watching the Bridge-players, and when she had finally reached her room, tired and excited, Flora Thangue had come in for a last cigarette and half an hour of chat. Her first evening in the new world had had its clouded moments, for it was impossible not to feel the alien, and the kindness of English people, no matter how deep, is casual in expression. But on the whole she had felt more girlishly happy and ebullient than since her sister had gone her own way and left a heavy burden for young shoulders behind her. In the freedom of a girl in Europe, no matter how prized, there is much of loneliness in idleness, a constant attitude of defence, moments of bitter wonder and disgust, and, to the analytical mind, an encroaching dread of a more normal future with a chronic canker of discontent.