“I adore them myself.” The girl, who was very pretty and quite simple, spoke with an unpremeditated innocence that Mame liked but deplored. Class A girls of this sort made it altogether too easy for Class B people to get away with it.
“No use for Canucks.” Mame looked towards Shelton France Mackelland with open hostility. “They are the worst kind of tinhorns mostly.”
Sweetly and gravely the girl begged Mame’s pardon. This odd, fierce, untamed little American was using what to her was a foreign language.
Before Mame could fully expound what her attitude was towards the Canucks of the earth, a young man of a different sort bore down upon her with a plate of cakes. He was the identical Bill whom Mame had admired so much when she had first seen him two weeks ago. This afternoon he was looking nicer than ever. A picture of health and comeliness, he was doing enormous credit to his tailor. And his manners were most engagingly frank. Even in the eyes of an observer severely democratic they hadn’t a suspicion of “lugs.”
“I like that one,” said Mame, after the bearer of the cakes had passed on. She bit a piece out of her recently acquired bun and found brandy in the heart of it. “If I was falling in love I’ll say he’d be the baby for me.”
The friendly neighbour glanced at her in mild but furtive wonder.
“I didn’t get his name?” said Mame interrogatively.
“That’s my cousin Kidderminster.”
“Kidderminster, is it?” In what connection had she heard the name? She suddenly remembered. “I guess he’s some relation of Lady Violet’s.”
“Her brother.”