heerd the name. But I s'pose it's all right. I like to know who calls.'
I almost had hysterics when we got into the street, but Julia could
not see the joke at all."

Count Orsini was not quite sure that he himself saw the joke, so he
only smiled becomingly and showed his teeth. For simple,
childlike vanity and self-consciousness nothing equals an Italian
Secretary of Legation at twenty-five. Yet conscious that the effect
of his personal beauty would perhaps be diminished by permanent
silence, he ventured to murmur presently:

"Do you not find it very strange, this society in America?"

"Society!" laughed Sybil with gay contempt. "There are no snakes
in America, any more than in Norway."

"Snakes, mademoiselle!" repeated Orsini, with the doubtful
expression of one who is not quite certain whether he shall risk
walking on thin ice, and decides to go softly: "Snakes! Indeed they
would rather be doves I would call them."

A kind laugh from Sybil strengthened into conviction his hope that
he had made a joke in this unknown tongue. His face brightened,
his confidence returned; once or twice he softly repeated to
himself: "Not snakes; they would be doves!" But Mrs. Lee's
sensitive ear had caught Sybil's remark, and detected in it a certain
tone of condescension which was not to her taste.

The impassive countenances of these bland young Secretaries of
Legation seemed to acquiesce far too much as a matter of course in