Chapter 14 - Page 2

her little. Such, at least, was Isabel's theory; when, at
table, she was not occupied in conversation she was usually
occupied in forming theories about her neighbours. According to
Isabel, if Miss Molyneux should ever learn what had passed
between Miss Archer and Lord Warburton she would probably be
shocked at such a girl's failure to rise; or no, rather (this was
our heroine's last position) she would impute to the young
American but a due consciousness of inequality.

Whatever Isabel might have made of her opportunities, at all
events, Henrietta Stackpole was by no means disposed to neglect
those in which she now found herself immersed. "Do you know
you're the first lord I've ever seen?" she said very promptly to
her neighbour. "I suppose you think I'm awfully benighted."

"You've escaped seeing some very ugly men," Lord Warburton
answered, looking a trifle absently about the table.

"Are they very ugly? They try to make us believe in America that
they're all handsome and magnificent and that they wear wonderful
robes and crowns."

"Ah, the robes and crowns are gone out of fashion," said Lord
Warburton, "like your tomahawks and revolvers."

"I'm sorry for that; I think an aristocracy ought to be
splendid," Henrietta declared. "If it's not that, what is it?"

"Oh, you know, it isn't much, at the best," her neighbour
allowed. "Won't you have a potato?"

"I don't care much for these European potatoes. I shouldn't know
you from an ordinary American gentleman."

"Do talk to me as if I were one," said Lord Warburton. "I don't
see how you manage to get on without potatoes; you must find so
few things to eat over here."

Henrietta was silent a little; there was a chance he was not
sincere. "I've had hardly any appetite since I've been here," she
went on at last; "so it doesn't much matter. I don't approve of
you, you know; I feel as if I ought to tell you that."

"Don't approve of me?"

"Yes; I don't suppose any one ever said such a thing to you
before, did they? I don't approve of lords as an institution. I
think the world has got beyond them--far beyond."

"Oh, so do I. I don't approve of myself in the least. Sometimes
it comes over me--how I should object to myself if I were not
myself, don't you know? But that's rather good, by the way--not
to be vainglorious."

"Why don't you give it up then?" Miss Stackpole enquired.

"Give up--a--?" asked Lord Warburton, meeting her harsh inflexion
with a very mellow one.

"Give up being a lord."

"Oh, I'm so little of one! One would really forget all about it
if you wretched Americans were not constantly reminding one.
However, I do think of giving it up, the little