"I should think so."
"Did you meet many people?"
"Plenty. I fell in with Lady Brock on the steamer, and she came in handy. I knew some people when I was there before, and took out some good letters; and then there is the American colony."
"Yes, the American colony," said Van Vort; "who are they?"
"Some of them are people one doesn't know at home, but the English don't mind that, so why should we? You remember Mrs. Raynor, that pretty woman who used to be about New York, and afterward so scandalized the prudes by an affair with a Russian Grand Duke that no one received her when she came home?"
"Of course; did you run across her?"
"Yes; she is in London now, the smartest of the smart; the friend of the prince and the envy of American turf hunters. They wouldn't have her in New York, but now they flock to her house because she is in the London smart set, and she is clever enough to receive them and forget the malarious past."
"I suppose you went there; the malarious past didn't frighten you away."
"Of course not. I was her right-hand man, and used to help entertain the people at her Wednesday afternoons. Not only that, but I was hand-in-glove with Mrs. Smallpage."
"What! the wife of the late furniture dealer on Fifth Avenue?"