I have
noticed this often. Of course, they must first have accepted the
Americans. But that once done, they seem to say to themselves:
"Hallo, these women are so bright. We aren't going to be outdone
in brightness." And for the time being they certainly aren't. But it
wears off. So it was with Leonora--at least until she noticed me.
She began, Leonora did--and perhaps it was that that gave me the
idea of a touch of insolence in her character, for she never
afterwards did any one single thing like it--she began by saying in
quite a loud voice and from quite a distance:
"Don't stop over by that stuffy old table, Teddy. Come and sit by
these nice people!"
And that was an extraordinary thing to say. Quite extraordinary. I
couldn't for the life of me refer to total strangers as nice people.
But, of course, she was taking a line of her own in which I at any
rate--and no one else in the room, for she too had taken the
trouble to read through the list of guests--counted any more than
so many clean, bull terriers. And she sat down rather brilliantly at
a vacant table, beside ours--one that was reserved for the
Guggenheimers. And she just sat absolutely deaf to the
remonstrances of the head waiter with his face like a grey ram's.
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