it echoed and reverberated in a manner which rendered all else inaudible.
' I read all about your presentation in the New York Herald,' she went on—' “ the new American beauty, the young and charming Countess of Keynes ”; and you'll laugh, Amelia, but I ordered a special edition with all about you printed in gilt letters, and just flooded Newport with the copies. I guess Newport will find it as hard to beat you as it did to beat the pearl-party. Newport will just curl up and die; I guess you've done for Newport. And there's one thing I want to ask: Do I, Lord Bolton, take any rank as mother of a countess? I could find nothing about it in your Debrett.'
Gallio turned to her with his most courtly air.
' Ah, Mrs. Palmer,' he said,' we have no rank in England to equal that which a charming and beautiful woman enjoys in her own right.'
The famous cry resounded over the lawns, and beat in echo against the house.
' Why, if that isn't just too sweet of you!' she cried. ' Lewis, here's Lord Bolton saying such things to me as you never thought of saying. And where's Reggie Armstrong? Reggie, did you hear what Lord Bolton said? You did, though you pretend you didn't. You're just green with jealousy. I can see the greenness reflected on your strawberries. Well, I never!'
Sybil Massington and others had arrived already, and the assembled party, some fifteen or sixteen, were now all gathered on the lawn, drinking tea and eating strawberries with a slight air of constraint, as if social thunder of some kind was in the air. Bertie, who had been receiving his guests indoors and bringing them out, was in a low chair just opposite Mrs. Palmer, listening with rather less than half an ear to what Sybil was saying to him. Quite involuntarily, at this speech he raised a deprecating eyebrow,
