"I?" cried Elizabeth. "They are a perfect pair of gentlemen!--and it is very kind of them to drive us!"
Delaine laughed uneasily.
"The gradations here are bewildering--or rather the absence of gradations."
"One gets down to the real thing," said Elizabeth, rather hotly.
Delaine laughed again, with a touch of bitterness.
"The real thing? What kind of reality? There are all sorts."
Elizabeth was suddenly conscious of a soreness in his tone. She tried to walk warily.
"I was only thinking," she protested, "of the chances a man gets in this country of showing what is in him."
"Remember, too," said Delaine, with spirit, "the chances that he misses!"
"The chances that belong only to the old countries? I am rather bored with them!" said Elizabeth flippantly.