Page:The Siege of London, The Pension Beaurepas, and The Point of View (Boston, James R. Osgood & Co., 1883).djvu/116

106 her name in the Morning Post. She has come up very quickly; she's almost famous. Every one is asking about her—you 'll be plied with questions."

Littlemore listened gravely. "How did she get in?"

"She met a large party at Longlands, and made them all think her great fun. They must have taken her up; she only wanted a start."

Littlemore seemed suddenly to be struck with the grotesqueness of this news, to which his first response was a burst of quick laughter. "To think of Nancy Beck! The people here are queer people. There 's no one they won't go after. They wouldn't touch her in New York."

"Oh, New York 's old-fashioned," said Waterville; and he announced to his friend that Lady Demesne was very eager for his arrival, and wanted to make him help her prevent her son's bringing such a person into the family. Littlemore apparently was not alarmed at her ladyship's projects, and intimated, in the manner of a man who thought them rather impertinent, that he could trust himself to keep out of her way. "It is n't a proper marriage, at any rate," Waterville declared.

"Why not, if he loves her?"

"Oh, if that 's all you want!" cried Waterville, with a degree of cynicism that rather surprised his companion. "Would you marry her yourself?"

"Certainly, if I were in love with her."

"You took care not to be that."