you sit opposite me till Doomsday you'll never utter a syllable that couldn't be printed in a book of etiquette. Whereas I,—well, the mere fact that they've pulled out my lopsided eyebrow doesn't mean that before the sun sets I shan't do and say some inadvertent bêtise that will proclaim the pit from which I was digged and make you say to yourself, 'Why does she?'. . . . One comfort is that most of these expensive people here are even more plebeian, at least in their souls, than I am, and you're almost the only person in the world whom I can't fool. . . . Fancy not having you there to be genteel to, and to shock,—especially to shock! At any moment I may deliberately say something vulgar, dear. The temptation often comes over me in hot waves."
"The 'deliberately' redeems you. Most people are vulgar without knowing it; they would bite off their tongues if they knew. . . . As for inadvertence, you've made only one faux pas in days."
"Oh, dear! What?"
"Yesterday, at that awful house."
"Mrs. Pardy's? Why, darling, you took me there yourself, as a treat."
"Yes, but it was Elsa Pardy we went to leave cards for. Elsa was one of the nicest girls in Washington when I knew her there. I would never have looked her up in that casual way if I had foreseen such a fulsome sister-in-law."
Louise laughed at the recollection, snuggling into the thought that Mrs. Pardy could not be laid at her
