“Near Chicago,” said the hostess sotto voce to Cousin Edith. For some reason, which was not at all clear, she seemed determined to locate Mame in a region wherein Mame had no desire to be located. Iowa was good enough for her, but evidently in London society Illinois was considered more Chick.
She took quite a liking to Cousin Edith. That lady had a nice flow of talk that was very amiable and kindly. Unlike Lady Violet’s it was not syncopated nor was it full of slang; it had no witty twists and turns, but it was well worth listening to. Cousin Edith appeared to have seen and known quite a lot, but she lacked Lady Violet’s force and humour and her modern touch. All the same she was light in hand and had the happy knack of meeting people a little more than half way, which could not be said for most Britishers.
Mame was getting on famously with Cousin Edith when a Mrs. Creber Newsum was announced. Mrs. Creber Newsum was tall, blonde, very blue-eyed, very fragile. Distinction seemed to stand off from her manner in festoons. Like her fair hair and her fine chin her fluting voice seemed to be raised a shade too high.
The moment Mrs. Creber Newsum entered the room, and even before being introduced to her, which she almost immediately was, Mame instinctively knew this was a kind of dame of whom she would do well to be careful. She had a subtle feeling before a word had passed between them that the newcomer was one of her own countrywomen. And in that case she shrewdly suspected that as far as Mrs. Creber Newsum was concerned she had better go slow. By now Miss Amethyst Du Rance knew enough of Europe to be aware that in the eyes of a Mrs. Creber Newsum, with her Fifth Avenue, Long Island, flat-in-Paris, villa-in-Italy style, she was very much, at present, “the wrong kind of American.”
However, she was not always going to be the wrong kind of American. But for the moment, knowing as much as she did, and being able to guess at what she didn’t, she intended to imitate the motions of a character famous in the Bible. She would walk delicately.
Miss Du Rance was not flustered at all. She had been through the fire at Clanborough House, she had learned a few things and she had the moral support of an influential and an able friend. Just how able that friend was she discovered within the next two minutes.
“Mrs. Creber Newsum,” said Lady Violet, in a voice that sounded quite impressive, “this is my friend Miss Du Rance of Chicago.”
It was odd, but Mame perceived in a flash the tactical value of the “Chicago.” Somehow it seemed to account for her in a general way, whereas the Iowa, let alone the Cowbarn, might have accounted for her much too definitely, at any rate in the eyes of Mrs. Creber Newsum. Beyond a doubt, Lady Violet was clever.
Mrs. Creber Newsum glanced at Mame, more in sorrow than in anger. Then she offered her hand as if it rather hurt her to do so; and then she withdrew it as if the touch of Mame’s fingers was a shade more than her spotless gloves could bear. Mame felt that her compatriot—she couldn’t tell exactly how she knew Mrs. Creber Newsum was an American, but she would have bet a hundred and fifty dollars that she was—was slightly overdoing the aristocracy racket. On Fifth Avenue it might have seemed all right; but it was so consciously “high-grade,” that it had a tendency to get on the nerves of common folks.
The introduction had just been got over with real queenliness on the one side—Mrs. Creber Newsum simply couldn’t help being queenly—and real discretion on the other, when Mame surprised the broadest smile she had yet seen on the averted face of Lady Violet. Plainly her friend was enjoying the moment hugely. What there was to be secretly so amused about, Mame couldn’t guess. But the smile of Lady Violet set her thinking.