typical English country house, and Lady Homartyn in an habituated way
ran over the points of her Tudor specimen. Mr. Direck was not accustomed
to titled people, and was suddenly in doubt whether you called a
baroness "My Lady" or "Your Ladyship," so he wisely avoided any form of
address until he had a lead from Mr. Britling. Mr. Britling presently
called her "Lady Homartyn." She took Mr. Direck and sat him down beside
a lady whose name he didn't catch, but who had had a lot to do with the
British Embassy at Washington, and then she handed Mr. Britling over to
the Rt. Honble. George Philbert, who was anxious to discuss certain
points in the latest book of essays. The conversation of the lady from
Washington was intelligent but not exacting, and Mr. Direck was able to
give a certain amount of attention to the general effect of the scene.

He was a little disappointed to find that the servants didn't wear
livery. In American magazine pictures and in American cinematograph
films of English stories and in the houses of very rich Americans living
in England, they do so. And the Mansion House is misleading; he had met
a compatriot who had recently dined at the Mansion House, and who had
described "flunkeys" in hair-powder and cloth of gold--like Thackeray's
Jeames Yellowplush. But here the only servants were two slim, discreet
and attentive young gentlemen in black coats with a gentle piety in
their manner instead of pride. And he was a little disappointed too by a
certain lack of splendour in the company. The ladies affected him as
being ill-dressed; there was none of the hard snap, the "_There!_ and
what do you say to it?" about them of the well-dressed American woman,
and the men too were not so much tailored as unobtrusively and yet
grammatically clothed.


Section 4