“Underneath--yes. On the surface--no. I used to be, but now I’m posing with the rest of ’em. You’ll have to get out of New York to see Americans. There are droves of ’em here, but they’re so scattered in places you’ll never go to that you couldn’t find them. You’d better go West if you wish to be sure of seeing the real thing.” “It’s very confusing. How shall I know this American when I see him?” “When you see a man or a woman who looks as if he or she would do something honest and valuable, who looks you straight in the eyes, and makes you feel proud that you’re a human being and ashamed that you are not a broader, better, honester one--that’s an American.” And then he smiled with his eyes so queerly that Frothingham could not decide whether or not he was jesting. At the club Wallingford introduced him into a large circle of young men, seated round two tables pushed together, and covered with “high balls,” and bottles of carbonated water, and silver bowls of cracked ice. He said little, drank his whiskey and water, and listened. “It’s the talk of stock brokers and tradesmen,” he said to himself. “Yet these fellows are certainly gentlemen, and they don’t talk business in the least like our middle-class people. It’s very confusing.” After he left the others were most friendly, and even admiring, in their comments upon him. “He’s monotonous, and poor, and will never have anything unless he marries it,” said Wallingford. “If he were a plain, poor, incapable, rather dull American, is there one of us that would waste five minutes on him?” There was silence, then a laugh. V Wallingford and Frothingham developed a warm friendship. Wallingford was extremely suspicious of himself in it, but after a searching self-analysis decided that his liking for the Earl was to a certain extent genuine. “He doesn’t know much--at least, he acts as if he didn’t. But he’s clever in a curious way, and a good listener, and not a bit of a fakir. No doubt he’s on the lookout for a girl with cash, but English ideas on that subject are different from ours--that is, from what ours are supposed to be. He’s a type of English gentleman, and not a bad type of gentleman without any qualification.” When he expressed some such ideas to Catherine Hollister, at a dance given for her by Mrs. Carnarvon, she went so much further in praise of Frothingham that he laughed. “So that’s the way the wind blows, eh?” he said, grinning at her satirically. She coloured, and put on the look of an offended saint. “Countess of Frothingham,” he went on, undisturbed. “That _would_ sound romantic, wouldn’t it? Catherine, Countess of Frothingham!” “How can you be so coarse-fibred in some ways, Joe, and so fine in others?” she said reproachfully. “I don’t know, dear lady. I suppose because I’m human--just like you.” “Let us dance,” was her only reply. She had known Joe so long that she couldn’t help liking him, but he certainly was trying.