Have you met
Miss Boncassen yet?'
'The American beauty? No. Is she here?'
'Yes; and she particularly wants to be introduced to you; you
won't betray me, will you?'
'Certainly not; I am true as steel.'
'She wanted, she said, to see if the eldest son of the Duke of
Omnium really did look like any other man.'
'Then I don't want to see her,' said Silverbridge, with a look of
vexation.
'There you are wrong, for there was a real downright fun in the
way she said it. There they are, and I shall introduce you.' Then
Mrs Montacute Jones absolutely left her post for a minute or two,
and taking the young lord down the steps of the terrace did
introduce him to Mr Boncassen, who was standing there amidst a
crowd, and to Miss Boncassen.
Mr Boncassen was an American who had lately arrived in England
with the object of carrying out certain literary pursuits in which
he was engaged within the British Museum. He was an American who
had nothing to do with politics and nothing to do with trade. He
was a man of wealth and a man of letters.
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