Tiny laughed. “It’s you that are quite too frightfully clever. Be careful, dear, that you don’t talk books to any of the young men to-night.”
“I suppose I won’t have any one to talk books with till Cecil comes,” said Lee with some viciousness. “Is Lord Arrowmount clever?”
“No, thank Heaven! He is just a nice, quiet, big, kind Englishman. He takes photographs, but I don’t mind that, as he doesn’t talk much about it; and when I said I’d rather not stand in the broiling sun with my eyes puckered up for ten minutes at a time, he never mentioned it again. I think we shall be quite happy. Of course we’ll come back to California every few years, or mother will come to us.”
“Of course. So shall I. I never could leave California for very long.”
“Englishmen are not so easy to manage as American men, but I believe that as soon as I understand Arthur I shall be able to manage him quite easily. I should simply hate it if he were always contradicting me.”
“He won’t. I don’t know that I should care to manage Cecil. I think it must be magnificent to be lorded over by a man you love; but I should want my own way all the same. I’d storm and beg and cajole, and then of course I’d get it.”
Tiny laughed. “I don’t know much about Englishmen, but I think you know less.”
“But, you see, I shan’t meet Cecil again for several years, and by that time I shall be quite experienced. Besides, I’ve made a regular study of Randolph and Tom. I think it must be so interesting to understand men—and so useful.”
“You look so knowing—just like a baby owl.”
“There can’t be such an extraordinary amount of difference, considering that we are descended from them and speak the same language. And for that matter, I’m saturated with English literature. It’s the only one I know, and it has formed my mind. I’ve scarcely read an American novel, and never an American poem—is there one? And I know English history backwards, and adore it.”