He couldn’t imagine that while he talked to Mrs. Freer—and it amazed him afterwards that he should have chattered so; he could account for it but by the state of his nerves—she should be thinking only of the strangeness of the situation he sketched for her. She thought Americans as good as other people, but she didn’t see where, in American life, the daughter of a marquis would, as she phrased it, work in. To take a simple instance—they coursed through Mrs. Freer’s mind with extraordinary speed—wouldn’t she always expect to go in to dinner first? As a novelty and for a change, over there, they might like to see her do it—there might be even a pressure for places at the show. But with the increase of every kind of sophistication that was taking place in America the humorous view to which she would owe her immediate ease mightn’t continue to be taken; and then where would poor Lady Barb be? This was in truth a scant instance; but Mrs. Freer’s vivid imagination—much as she had lived in Europe she knew her native land so well—saw a host of others massing themselves behind it. The consequence of all of which was that after listening to her young friend in the most engaging silence she raised her clasped hands, pressed them against her breast, lowered her voice to a tone of entreaty and, with all the charming cheer of her wisdom, uttered three words: “My dear Jackson, don’t—don’t—don’t.” “Don’t what?” He took it at first coldly. “Don’t neglect the chance you have of getting out of it. You see it would never do.” He knew what she meant by his chance of getting out of it; he had in his many meditations of course not overlooked that. The ground the old couple had taken about settlements—and the fact that Lady Beauchemin hadn’t come back to him to tell him, as she promised, that she had moved them, proved how firmly they were rooted—would have offered an all-sufficient pretext to a man who should have repented of his advances. Jackson knew this, but knew at the same time that he had not repented. The old couple’s want of imagination didn’t in the least alter the fact that the girl was, in her perfection, as he had told her father, one of the rarest of types. Therefore he simply said to Mrs. Freer that he didn’t in the least wish to get out of it; he was as much in it as ever and intended to remain in it. But what did she mean, he asked in a moment, by her statement that it would never do? Why wouldn’t it do? Mrs. Freer replied by another question—should he really like her to tell him? It wouldn’t do because Lady Barb wouldn’t be satisfied with her place at dinner. She wouldn’t be content—in a society of commoners—with any but the best; and the best she couldn’t expect (and it was to be supposed he didn’t expect her) always grossly to monopolise; as people of her sort, for that matter, did so successfully grab it in England. “What do you mean by commoners?” Jackson rather grimly demanded.