"So they are—at least Keith told me so when he last wrote. I knew him in New York," she added explanatorily. "He is a nice boy; deserves his luck, too. Uncommon rich, ain't he. My! two million dollars ain't bad; and I'm not sure if it ain't more. Old Hezekiah Jefferson was a relation of my niece. He was a warm man, he was, and this boy's got all."
"He ought to marry," suggests a Belgravian matron, who has two daughters "out," and a third budding into bloom, and becoming obtrusively anxious to show herself among the rosebud "garden of girls," who blossom in the London season.
"Marry?" And Mrs. Bradshaw B. Woollffe laughs. "I guess he don't think of that yet awhile. He's too young, and he likes his liberty; he's a bit skittish, too, but that's not much account as some go. Marryin' will be more than he'll care about for a long time to come, even though the girls do go after him like squir'ls after cobs. But then he's uncommon handsome, too."
"Perhaps his friend, Lady Lauraine, as you call her, would object to his settling down?" suggests the Belgravian matron, with a little more acidity than sweetness in her well-modulated voice.
Mrs. Bradshaw B. Woollffe puts down her teacup, and looks straight at the speaker,
"In our country," she remarks, "people say right down what they think. I don't know what you mean, but I guess. Lady Lauraine is a good woman and a good wife, and she'd be glad enough to see her old playfellow settled and happy; but, you see it's difficult for a rich fellow to know whether it's himself or his money that the girl takes him for, and I suspect Keith would like to be sure on that subject before he jumped into matrimony."
There is a momentary hush among the fair tea-drinkers; but all are agreed in their minds that Americans have an unpleasantly coarse way of putting things.
"It's four years ago since I came to Eu-rope," resumed Mrs. Bradshaw B. Woollffe. "I've got more spry about your ways than I was. But there's one thing I don't hold with, and that is that you don't believe in your women. Our Amurcan girls, now, go to their balls, and parties, and skatin' matches, and junketings, and the young fellows see them home and 'squire them about, and we don't think no harm of it; and as for scandal, why, we'd call a man a blackguard who'd say a word against a girl's character for goin' about with another man. It's a point of honour with them to treat 'em just as respectfully as if a hundred mothers and chaperons were looking on. Now, here in Europe you're all in such a mortal funk, not only with your gals, but with your married women. You don't seem to believe in such a thing as friendship. Why, if a man and a woman like to talk to each other there's a scandal directly! I surmise it's your way, but it bothers me, that it does."
There is a little titter among the fair worshippers at the shrine of tea and riches.
"Dear Mrs. Woollffe, you do say such odd things; but I think you quite mistake. We are certainly particular with our girls. We must be. Society would be scandalized if they went about in the free-and-easy fashion of their American cousins. But with married women it is quite different. We are really free—more free, I think, than your countrywomen; and as for friendship—dear me, that is quite allowable—quite!"