“I’ve talked with two or three of them,” Lord Lambeth went on, “and I thought they had a kind of fawning manner.”

“Why should they fawn?” Bessie demanded.

“I’m sure I don’t know. Why indeed?”

“Perhaps you only thought so,” she suggested.

“Well, of course,” her companion allowed, “that’s a kind of thing that can’t be proved.”

“In America they don’t fawn,” she went on.

“Don’t they? Ah, well, then they must be better company.”

She had a pause. “That’s one of the few things I don’t like about England—your keeping the distinguished people apart.”

“How do you mean, apart?”

“Why, letting them come only to certain places. You never see them.”