Page:The Siege of London, The Pension Beaurepas, and The Point of View (Boston, James R. Osgood & Co., 1883).djvu/15

Rh was not heeding his answer, but he presently heard himself appealed to. "I say, I wish very much you would do me a favor."

"I did you a favor in coming here," said Littlemore. "It 's insufferably hot, and the play is like a dinner that has been dressed by the kitchen-maid. The actors are all doublures."

"It's simply to answer me this: is she respectable, now?" Waterville rejoined, inattentive to his friend's epigram.

Littlemore gave a groan, without turning his head. "You are always wanting to know if they are respectable. What on earth can it matter?"

"I have made such mistakes—I have lost all confidence," said poor Waterville, to whom European civilization had not ceased to be a novelty, and who during the last six months had found himself confronted with problems long unsuspected. Whenever he encountered a very nice-looking woman, he was sure to discover that she belonged to the class represented by the heroine of M. Augier's drama; and whenever his attention rested upon a person of a florid style of attraction, there was the strongest probability that she would turn out to be a countess. The countesses looked so superficial and the others looked so exclusive. Now Littlemore distinguished at a glance; he never made mistakes.

"Simply for looking at them, it does n't matter, I suppose," said Waterville, ingenuously, answering his companion's rather cynical inquiry.