I said I knew numbers of perfect dears married in England, and he said, “Maybe, maybe, but if there comes a ruction, they won’t grin and bear it in silence on account of the family as you would, they will take it into the courts, and come out on top, too; but it causes a talk and that is not good for prestige.  You asked me about the thing in principle and I’m bound to tell you the truth.  We aren’t brought up on tradition in our country, and our girls don’t know what noblesse oblige means; they consider natural feelings first; guess it’s old fashioned anyway, but it is necessary in your old country, or the game won’t work.”  I said I thought he held quite different views to the rest of his countrymen, who placed their women on a pedestal above the whole world.  Then he blazed at me!  “Don’t you make any mistake about that.  I’m with them there; I think our women are ahead, taking them all round, but that don’t make them suited to old countries, any more than new wine in old bottles or new patches in old garments;—­breaks the bottle and wears out the stuff.”

I said I would not misunderstand him, but I was sure most of his own country-women at the table would be offended to hear his views, and again he said, “Maybe, maybe!  Pretty empty heads; they can’t reason; they only see what they want to, but I see the straight truth.”

I am not clever enough to have argued with him properly, but I did ask him in his theorising if he did not think it was good for our old race to have the mixture of new blood; and he said no, that by the rules of breeding we wanted re-stocking from the primitive.  “Your old families should take a strong country lass now and then.  Let ’em marry their milk-maids and leave our hot-house plants alone.  Have you read Burbank’s books?” he added.  “No?  Well, read ’em; you’ll understand then cause and effect; though his are all about plants.  He’s the greatest giant we’ve got in America, in my opinion.”

You will think I am being a frightful bore, Mamma, telling you all this; and I can’t give you the strange force and power of this man’s personality, which made him so interesting; but I had to write it all because I am telling you everything which strikes me as American, and different to us, and we have nothing like this man at home; and when the lady at his other hand did claim his attention, Daniel Latour, after reproaching me for my shoulder being turned to him for so long, told me some of his history.  Elias P. Arden, his name is, and he is a senator.  He has had a remarkable career, rising from nothing, and being the bravest, coolest, hardest man in the mining camps.  He is colossally rich, and his daughter Lola is perfectly lovely, and married to a silly young Vinerhorn, who has a country house close here.

It is so quaint how all the men stand in awe of their wives!  Daniel Latour, even though he knows Valerie is a great friend of mine, and would not mind a bit, still kept glancing nervously across at her whenever he said anything a little go-ahead.