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m gone), Mr. Dick made himself quite pleasant. He wasn't impertinent, or too admiring, or anything which a well-brought-up young Englishman ought not to be. Indeed, I thought by his manner that he wanted tacitly to apologize for his bad behaviour when we first met; so probably, when I fancied he looked wicked that night at Ennis's Rooms, it _was_ because he wanted to sneeze. You have taught me to give everybody, except young men, the benefit of the doubt; but I don't see why one shouldn't give it to young men, too. I think they're rather easier to forgive, somehow, than women. Is that why they're dangerous? But D. B. could never be dangerous to me, in the sense of falling in love. His aunt certainly wishes to throw us together; I suppose on account of Ellaline's money. She doesn't like girls, I'm sure, but would always be ready, on principle, to give first aid to heiresses. It is something to be thankful for that she hasn't grafted herself on to our party, as I feared she might; and though they're both going to stop at some country house near Southsea, and they "hope we may meet," I dare say I shan't be bothered by them again while I'm in England. I don't intend to worry. _La donna e automobile!_ I haven't properly described our start, or told you about the things I've seen _en route_, and I promised to tell you everything; so I'll go back to the beginning of the trip. There was Apollo, throbbing with joy of life in front of the hotel door, at nine o'clock of a perfect English morning. There were statuesque, Ritzy footmen, gazing admiringly at the big golden-yellow car (that was one of the reasons I thought she should be named after the Sun God, she is so golden). There was Charu Chunder Bose, alias Young Nick, who would think it a sin against all his gods to dress as a chauffeur, and who continues to garb himself as a self-respecting Bengali--Young Nick, with his sleepy eyes, and his Buddha-when-young smile, about as appropriate on a motor-car as a baby crocodile. There was Sir Lionel waiting to tuck us in. There were we two females in neat gray motor dust-cloaks, on which the Dragon insisted; Mrs. Norton in a toque, which she wore as if it were a remote and dreaded contingency; your Audrie in a duck of an early Victorian bonnet, in which she liked herself better than in anything else she ever had on before. There, too, was our luggage, made to fit the car, and looking like the very last word of up-to-dateness--if
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