“Why not—since you are interested in her future?”
“Because I’m positive he’s the only man living that doesn’t see my wrinkles, and in my pocket he’ll stay. Well—there will be the Arrowmounts, Montgomerys, Gearys, Pixes, Mary, and sixteen or eighteen of the usual crowd: the Beaumanoirs, Larry Monmouth, the Duke and Duchess of Launcester, Lord and Lady Regent, and, oh, the ones one has to have or drop out. But I’d like to shake them all for one year.”
“I thought you adored English people.”
“I do and I don’t. I get mad sometimes at all the trouble they give me. Look at Mary Gifford! She hasn’t a penny, doesn’t lift her finger, and she’s in and out of every great house in England.”
“Well—surely; she belongs to them. She’s related to half of them—her father was a Marquis——”
“That’s just it,” said Lady Barnstaple, with a heavy scowl. “She belongs to them. I don’t. I can’t complain that they haven’t even run after me, but I’m not intimate, not dead intimate with one of ’em, all the same.”
“What does it matter? You had ambitions and you’ve satisfied them. There must always be something beyond one’s grasp.”
“There’s a good deal beyond mine,” said Lady Barnstaple with a sigh. “I can’t be young again; and when I had youth I made so little of it.”
“Well, you dazzle Mr. Pix,” said Lee lightly. “Let that console you.”