"Shall I speak plainly?" asked Mrs. Carnby, laying her hand for an instant on his arm.
"Very, please. There seems to be something rather serious back of all this."
"Eh bien! You're a young man, Andrew Vane, to whom fate has been uncommonly civil. Your family is rather exceptionally good, on—er—on both sides. Your means are, or will be, some day, almost uncomfortably ample. You're more than passably good-looking, and you're surprisingly clever. Your health is magnificent, and, finally, nature chose America as your environment."
"A mixed blessing, that last!"
"Five words, with Thomas Radwalader in every letter!" said Mrs. Carnby. "I should think you'd find the rôle of phonograph rather unsatisfying."
"I thought you liked him," said Andrew, flushing.
"And I like the obelisk!" nodded Mrs. Carnby, "but that doesn't necessarily imply that I should like half a hundred tin facsimiles set up in its immediate vicinity, and making the Place de la Concorde look like a colossal asparagus-bed! There are only three ways in which a man can be distinguished, nowadays. He must be unimaginably rich, unspeakably immoral, or unquestionably original. You're not the first, as yet, and you've just proved that you're not the last."
"I'm not the second, I hope?"
Mrs. Carnby pursed her lips, and wrinkled her forehead.