“They’re tremendously old; they’re all falling to ruins.”
The girl rose to it. “I think there’s nothing so charming as an old ruinous garden. We must certainly go there.”
Her friend broke out into mirth. “I say, Woodley, here’s Miss Alden wants to go down to Rosherville Gardens! Hang it, they are ‘weird’!”
Willie Woodley looked a little blank; he was caught in the fact of ignorance of an apparently conspicuous feature of London life. But in a moment he turned it off. “Very well,” he said, “I’ll write for a permit.”
Lord Lambeth’s exhilaration increased. “‘Gad, I believe that, to get your money’s worth over here, you Americans would go anywhere!”
“We wish to go to Parliament,” said Bessie. “That’s one of the first things.”
“Ah, it would bore you to death!” he returned.
“We wish to hear you speak.”
“I never speak—except to young ladies.”
She looked at him from under the shade of her parasol. “You’re very strange,” she then quietly concluded. “I don’t think I approve of you.”