Next day, after a delightful shooting-lunch and a brisk walk back, the heiress came to my room and talked to me.

She had apparently taken a great fancy to me, and we had had several conversations.

“I don’t know why, but you give me the impression that you are a stranger, too, like Aunt Martina and me,” she said.  “You don’t look at all like the rest of the Englishwomen.  Why, your back is not nearly so long.  I could almost take you for an American, you are so chic.”

I laughed.

“Even Lady Tilchester, who is by far the nicest and grandest of them, does not look such an aristocrat as you do.”

(Miss Trumpet pronounces it arrist-tocrat.)

“I assure you, I am a very ordinary person,” I said.  “But you are right, I am a stranger, too.”

“Now I am glad to hear that,” said Miss Trumpet, beginning to polish her nails with my polisher, which was lying on the dressing-table.  “Because then I can talk to you.  You know I have come here to sample the Duke.  Poppa is so set on the idea of my being a duchess.  But it seems to me, if you are going to buy a husband, you might as well buy the one you like best.  Don’t you think so?”

“I entirely agree with you,” I said, feelingly.  “You would probably be happier with the one you prefer, even if he were only a humble baron.”  And I smiled at her slyly.

“Now that is just what I wanted to ask you about.  But if I took Lord Luffton, instead of the Duke, should I have to walk a long way behind at the Coronation next year?”

“I am afraid you would,” I said.

She looked puzzled and undecided.

“That is worrying me,” she said.  “As for the men themselves—­well, we don’t think so much of them over in America as you do here.  It is no wonder Englishmen are so full of assurance, the way they are treated.  You would never find an American woman showing a man she was madly jealous of him, like Lady Grenellen did last night.  Why, we keep them in their places across the Atlantic.”

“So I have heard,” I said.

“I have been accustomed to be run after all my life,” she continued, “so it does not amount to anything, a man making love to me.  But he is beautiful, isn’t he?—­Lord Luffton, I mean.”

“Yes, though he has the reputation of great fickleness.  The Duke would probably make a better husband,” I said.

I felt I owed it to Lady Tilchester to do something towards advancing the cause.

“Oh, as for that, a man always makes a good enough husband if you have the control of the dollars, and poppa would see to that,” said Miss Trumpet.

This seemed so true I had nothing to say.

“Now, I will tell you,” she continued, examining her nails, which shone as bright as glass.  “I have got a kind of soft feeling for that Baron, but I would like to be an English duchess.  Now, which would you take, if you were me?”