Not to get clothes from New York and London--"
"You keep quiet," shrieked Alexina, who with difficulty refrained from
substituting: "You shut up." She flung off Aileen's hands. "What do you
know about him? He doesn't like you."
"Never had a chance to find out."
"What can you know about him, then?"
"Think I'm blind? Think I'm deaf? Don't I know everything that goes on in
this town? Isn't sizing-up my long suit? And he's as dull as--as a fish
without salt. I sat next to him at a dinner, and all he could talk about
was the people he'd met--our sort, of course. And he was dull even at that.
He's all manners and bluff--"
"You couldn't draw him out. He talked to me."
"What about? I'm really interested to know. Everybody says the same thing.
They fall for his dancing and manners, and--well, yes--I 'll admit it--for
his looks. He even looks like a gentleman. But all the girls say he bores
'em stiff. They have to talk their heads off. What did he say to you that
was so frantically interesting?"
"Well, of course--we danced most of the time."
"That's just it. He's inherited the shell of some able old ancestor and not
a bit of the skull furniture. Nature often plays tricks like that. But I
could forgive him for being dull if he weren't such a damn snob."
"You shan't call him names. If he wants to be one of us, and life was
so unkind as to--to--well, birth him on the outside, I'm sure that's no
crime.
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