“You don’t take any train. You take a boat.”
“Oh I see. And what is the name of—a—the—a—town?”
“It’s a regular old city—don’t you let them hear you call it a village or a hamlet or anything of that kind. They’d half-kill you. Only it’s a city of pleasure—of lawns and gardens and verandahs and views and, above all, of good Samaritans,” Mr. Westgate developed. “But you’ll see what Newport is. It’s cool. That’s the principal thing. You’ll greatly oblige me by going down there and putting yourself in the hands of Mrs. Westgate. It isn’t perhaps for me to say it, but you couldn’t be in better ones. Also in those of her sister, who’s staying with her. She’s half-crazy about Englishmen. She thinks there’s nothing like them.”
“Mrs. Westgate or—a—her sister?” asked Percy Beaumont modestly, yet in the tone of a collector of characteristic facts.
“Oh I mean my wife,” said Mr. Westgate. “I don’t suppose my sister-in-law knows much about them yet. You’ll show her anyhow. She has always led a very quiet life. She has lived in Boston.”
Percy Beaumont listened with interest. “That, I believe, is the most intellectual centre.”
“Well, yes—Boston knows it’s central and feels it’s intellectual. I don’t go there much—I stay round here,” Mr. Westgate more loosely pursued.
“I say, you know, we ought to go there,” Lord Lambeth broke out to his companion.
“Oh Lord Lambeth, wait till the great heat’s over!” Mr. Westgate interposed. “Boston in this weather would be very trying; it’s not the temperature for intellectual exertion. At Boston, you know, you have to pass an examination at the city limits, and when you come away they give you a kind of degree.”
Lord Lambeth flushed himself, in his charming way, with wonder, though his friend glanced to make sure he wasn’t looking too credulous—they had heard so much about American practices. He decided in time, at any rate, to take a safe middle course. “I daresay it’s very jolly.”