“If you would like to have a chafing-dish in your family,” remarked Jack, “you’ll have to marry an American girl.”

“I’m no Duke,” said I.

“Earls aren’t to be despised, if there are no Dukes handy,” said Molly.  “Besides, it’s getting a little obvious to marry a Duke.”

“Which is the reason you took up with a chauffeur,” retorted Jack.

“You call yourself a ‘penniless hearl,’” went on Molly, “and I suppose, of course, you are ‘belted.’  All earls are, in poetry and serials, which must be convenient when you’re really very poor, because if you’re hungry, you can always take a reef in your belt, while mere plain men have no such resource.  Have you got yours on now?”

“It’s in pawn,” said I.  “It’s no joke about being penniless.  Jack will tell you I’m obliged to let my dear old house in Oxfordshire, and the only luxuries I can afford are a few horses and a few books.  I prefer them to necessities—­since I can’t have both.”

I thought that Molly might laugh, but instead she looked abnormally grave.  “Jack told me,” she said, “how, when you and he came over to America, six or seven years ago, to shoot big game, you avoided girls, for fear people might suppose your alleged bear hunt was really an heiress hunt.  I forgive Jack, because that was in the dark ages, before he knew there was a Me.  But why should a girl be shunned by nice men solely because she’s an heiress?  Can’t she be as pretty and lovable in herself as a poor girl?”

“She can,” I replied, emphasising my words with a look in Molly’s face.  “No doubt she often is.  But I do wish some American girls who marry men from our side of the water wouldn’t let the papers advertise their weddings as ‘functions’ (sounds like obscure workings of physical organs), attended by the families of their exclusive acquaintance, worth, when lumped together, a billion of dollars or so.”

“I know.  It’s as if they were prize pigs at a fair, and were of no importance except for their dollars,” sighed Molly.  “And then, the detectives to watch the presents!  It’s disgusting.  But some of our newspapers are like Mr. Hyde.  Poor Dr. Jekyll can’t do anything with him; and anyhow, you needn’t think we’re all like that.  I have a friend who is one of the greatest heiresses in America, but she hates her money.  It has made her very unhappy, though she’s only twenty-one years old.  If you could see Mercedes, with her lovely, strange sad face, and big, wistful eyes——­”

“I can think of Mercedes only with a shiny grey body, upholstered crimson; and for eyes, huge acetylene lamps,” I was rude enough to break in; for I fancied that I saw what Mistress Molly would fain be up to, and my heart was not of the rubber-ball description, to be caught in the rebound.  If Molly cherished a secret intention of springing her peerless friend Mercedes upon me, during this tour which she had organised, it seemed better for everyone concerned that the hope should be nipped in the bud.  It was with unwonted meekness that she yielded to being suppressed, and I suffered immediate pangs of remorse.  To atone, I did my best to be agreeable.  All the way to Southampton I praised automobiles in general and hers in particular; admitted that in half a day I had become half a convert; and soon I had the pleasure of believing that the divine Molly had forgotten my sin.