ng-room with us, like in France, and the Vicomte did
not even go back with the others to smoke. But it was all done in such
a clever way it attracted no attention.

Jack Brandon had turned up, you know, Lord Felixtowe's brother: he came
with some people with whom he is spending the Sunday, and his methods
to speak with the lady he admires were so different to the Vicomte's.
Of course he had that extraordinary sans-gene of all those men, that
absolute unselfconsciousness which is not aware there is anyone else in
the room but himself and the lady he is bent upon; but instead of being
discreet, and making a semblance of taking an interest in the rest of
the company, as the Vicomte did, he just sprawled into a chair near
her, monopolised her conversation, and stared blankly in front of him
whenever she spoke to any one else. And Tom was doing almost the same
by Valerie. It is undoubtedly this quality of perfect ease and
unconscious insolence which for some unaccountable reason is attractive
in Englishmen. If it were assumed it would be insupportable
impertinence, but as you know, Mamma, it is not in the least. They are
perfectly unconscious of their behaviour; it is just that there is one
woman they want to speak to in a room, so that is all they see; the
rest of the people are merely furniture. Now, American men are always
polite and unselfish, and almost self-conscious where women are
concerned, whereas the French have too polished manners naturally to
allow them to forget the general company.

I tried to keep Gaston from making love to me, and when he would go on,
I said it bored me to death, and if he wanted to remain friends with me
he must simply amuse me; and then to tease him I got up and went and
talked to the Western senator. He had such a quizzical entertaining
look in his keen eye--he was being stiffly deferential to one of the
ladies, a Mrs. Welsh, who was talking to him so brightly. It looked
like a huge mastiff allowing a teeny griffon to play with it.

"They're bright as paint," he said to me when we sat down on a sofa,
pointing to Mrs. Welsh. "Dainty, pretty creatures. I don't think women
want brains, not man's brains, anyway." I am sure you would agree with
this, Mamma, and I am sure he is right.

I said to him how extraordinarily generous all American husbands and
fathers seemed to their women-kind, and what lovely clothes they had,
and what heaps of money they must spend on them; and he said, "By the