"Family?" said he in a puzzled way. "Do you have them in America?"
"One or two," said I. "But they are nearly all buried now."
The Guardsman paused at his own door.
"She is certainly stunning," he mused. "Lovely face; charming figure; eyes fairly crackle; and clever, very clever. You say she comes from Klapper's Extra Pale? Aw."
He softly closed the door.
I saw then that Mrs. Radigan was right. Captain Lord Algernon Fitznit is clever, but in the English way. All those hours when he seemed to be listening attentively to ideas on life and art he was really taking stock of Miss Klapper and making an eye at her through his monocle. And all those hours when she was sitting alone with her cards, demurely, as became a girl just out of school, knitting her pretty brow over the puzzle they presented, she had been conscious of it, charmingly conscious, and had kept her dark eyes intent on the knaves in the pack—except now and then.
Mignonette has just been finished. They finish them well, nowadays, in our schools; polish them up so not a rough spot shows. She had "gentlemen friends" a few years ago. Now she is somewhat wiser. But in New York she can boast only a few acquaintances, and those on Riverside Drive, in Harlem, and in Brooklyn. Therefore, says Mrs. Radigan, she is a person you ought not to know; in herself she may not be objectionable, but when we take people up we should not look at them so critically as at their friends, who number more, and may try to come into our lives in hordes. But Pearl Veal has stood by Mignonette. They went to school together, and though she has a trained laugh and a finished smile, and all those other accomplishments that girls learn at school to unfit them for good society, she is Pearl's oldest friend and will attend her at her wedding, attend her alone. Announcing that, Pearl's foot went down and Mrs. Radigan gasped, for she had already intimated to Marie Antoinette Williegilt, Marian Speechless, and one or two other young women one should know, that they would be called on to be bridesmaids. Beaten there, Mrs. Radigan sought consolation in Lord Algernon. And as now that gallant Guardsman is making an eye through his monocle at the person one ought not to know, it looks as though Mrs. Radigan will have to console herself with Green of my old boarding-house, who comes down to-morrow and is to be my best man. Green is my oldest friend, but I must confess I am nervous about him. In all probability this is the first week-end he ever spent, and he is likely to appear at Westbury in a topper and frock-coat, and it is two to one that he will talk about the latest "show," and festoon a watch-chain across his dress waistcoat. But I have known him for years, while with Williegilt Bumpschus, who was pressed on me by Mrs. Radigan, I have only a passing acquaintance.