'To a certain extent,' said Selwyn stoutly, 'there is much in what Mr.
Smyth says.'

'List to the pigmy praising the oracle,' chanted the artist.

'I do not think,' went on the American, 'that the English girls I have
met are as bright or as clever as the cultured young women of the
continent of America. In other words, with all her natural charm, the
English girl does not edit herself well.'

'In that,' said H. Stackton Dunckley, 'she reflects the breed. The
Anglo-Saxon has an instinctive indifference to thought.'

'As soon as an Englishman thinks,' minced Madame Carlotti, 'he leaves
England with its _cattivo_ climate and goes to the Colonies. _C'est
pourquoi_ the Empire ees so powerful--its brains are in the legs.'

'Come, come,' laughed Selwyn, 'is there no one here but me who can
discover any merit in Old England?'

'Yes,' said Pyford gloomily; 'London is only seven hours from Paris.'

'Ah--_Parigi_!' ejaculated Madame Carlotti with the fervour born of the
feeling in all Latin women that Paris is their spiritual capital.

'And yet,' said Selwyn, after a pause to see if Madame Carlotti's
exuberance was going to develop any further, 'in literature, which I
suppose is the natural art of the Anglo-Saxon temperament, we still
look to you for the outstanding figures. With all our ability for
writing short stories--and I think we are second only to the French in