“Yes, I see. It’s your sister that’s on the right side. You’re in rather a bad fix, ain’t you? You’ve got to be ‘good’ and mean, or you’ve got to be kind with a little courage. However, you take those things very quietly. There’s something in you that exasperates me. What does your sister think of me? Does she hate me?” Nancy persisted. “She knows nothing about you.” “Have you told her nothing?” “Never a word.” “Hasn’t she asked you? That shows how she hates me. She thinks I ain’t creditable to America. I know _that_ way of doing it. She wants to show people over here that, however they may be taken in by me, she knows much better. But she’ll have to ask you about me; she can’t go on for ever. Then what’ll you say?” “That you’re the biggest ‘draw’ in Europe.” “Oh shucks!” she cried, out of her repertory. “Haven’t you got into European society?” “Maybe I have, maybe I haven’t. It’s too soon to see. I can’t tell this season. Every one says I’ve got to wait till next, to see if it’s the same. Sometimes they take you right up for a few weeks and then just drop you anywhere. You’ve got to make it a square thing somehow—to drive in a nail.” “You speak as if it were your coffin,” said Littlemore. “Well, it _is_ a kind of coffin. I’m burying my past!” He winced at this—he was tired to death of her past. He changed the subject and turned her on to London, a topic as to which her freshness of view and now unpremeditated art of notation were really interesting, displayed as they were at the expense of most of her new acquaintances and of some of the most venerable features of the great city. He himself looked at England from the outside as much as it was possible to do; but in the midst of her familiar allusions to people and things known to her only since yesterday he was struck with the truth that she would never really be initiated. She buzzed over the surface of things like a fly on a window-pane. This surface immensely pleased her; she was flattered, encouraged, excited; she dropped her confident judgements as if she were scattering flowers, talked about her intentions, her prospects, her discoveries, her designs. But she had really learnt no more about English life than about the molecular theory. The words in which he had described her of old to Waterville came back to him: “_Elle ne doute de rien_!” Suddenly she jumped up; she was going out to dine and it was time to dress. “Before you leave I want you to promise me something,” she said off-hand, but with a look he had seen before and that pressed on the point—oh so intensely! “You’ll be sure to be questioned about me.” And then she paused. “How do people know I know you?”