I am so curious about it.’’

‘‘Aren’t ladies always curious?’’ asked the young man jestingly.

But Bessie Alden appeared to desire to answer his question seriously. ‘‘I don’t think so—I don’t think we are enough so—that we care about many things. So it’s all the more of a compliment,’’ she added, ‘‘that I should want to know so much about England.’’

The logic here seemed a little close; but Lord Lambeth, made conscious of a compliment, found his natural modesty just at hand. ‘‘I am sure you know a great deal more than I do.’’

‘‘I really think I know a great deal—for a person who has never been there.’’

‘‘Have you really never been there?’’ cried Lord Lambeth. ‘‘Fancy!’’

‘‘Never—except in imagination,’’ said the young girl.

‘‘Fancy!’’ repeated her companion. ‘‘But I daresay you’ll go soon, won’t you?’’

‘‘It’s the dream of my life!’’ declared Bessie Alden, smiling.

‘‘But your sister seems to know a tremendous lot about London,’’ Lord Lambeth went on.

The young girl was silent a moment. ‘‘My sister and I are two very different persons,’’ she presently said. ‘‘She has been a great deal in Europe. She has been in England several times. She has known a great many English people.’’

‘‘But you must have known some, too,’’ said Lord Lambeth.

‘‘I don’t think that I have ever spoken to one before. You are the first Englishman that—to my knowledge— I have ever talked with.’’

Bessie Alden made this statement with a certain gravity—almost, as it seemed to Lord Lambeth, an impressiveness. Attempts at impressiveness always made him feel awkward, and he now began to laugh and swing his stick. ‘‘Ah, you would have been sure to know!’’ he said. And then he added, after an instant, ‘‘I’m sorry I am not a better specimen.’’

The young girl looked away; but she smiled, laying aside her impressiveness. ‘‘You must remember that you are only a beginning,’’ she said. Then she retraced her steps, leading the way back to the lawn, where they saw Mrs. Westgate come toward them with Percy Beaumont still at her side. ‘‘Perhaps I shall go to England next year,’’ Miss Alden continued; ‘‘I want to, immensely. My sister is going to Europe, and she has asked me to go with her. If we go, I shall make her stay as long as possible in London.’’

‘‘Ah, you must come in July,’’ said Lord Lambeth. ‘‘That’s the time when there is most going on.’’

‘‘I don’t think I can wait till July,’’ the young girl rejoined. ‘‘By the first of May I shall be very impatient.’’ They had gone further, and Mrs. Westgate and her companion were near them. ‘‘Kitty,’’ said Miss Alden, ‘‘I have given out that we are going to London next May. So please to conduct yourself accordingly.’’

Percy Beaumont wore a somewhat animated—even a slightly irritated—air. He was by no means so handsome a man as his cousin, although in his cousin’s absence he might have passed for a striking specimen of the tall, muscular, fair-bearded, clear-eyed Englishman. Just now Beaumont’s clear eyes, which were small and of a pale gray color, had a rather troubled light, and, after glancing at Bessie Alden while she spoke, he rested them upon his kinsman. Mrs. Westgate meanwhile, with her superfluously pretty gaze, looked at everyone alike.

‘‘You had better wait till the time comes,’’ she said to her sister. ‘‘Perhaps next May you won’t care so much about London.