Page:Waylaid by Wireless - Balmer - 1909.djvu/72

Rh the same Englishman who'll tell all his private scandal will, as I said, leave you to get his name from his luggage. And if, after that, you call him by name, he'll blush. Truly.

"You see, Miss Varris," he explained, "the American tells you his name and can't tell you anything more about himself without making it personal. But the Englishman, by not telling his name, can tell any private affair without recollecting that it is about himself at all. Really, I have believed sometimes that they forget that they themselves are present. That must be why it shocks them so to call them by name. It makes them remember."

"Oh! Now I see!" the girl comprehended at length. "And just before I came in Mr. Dunneston was discussing you in the same spirit?"

"Precisely!" Preston affirmed. "He had begun to fear that I was a thief; so, instead of romping off to discuss me with some third person, he merely went over the matter impersonally with me. And, while I do not deny 54