“It must be very interesting to see that.”

“I hope you will find it so.  The resident diplomats, I have heard, say that they find society there more agreeable than at any other capital—­at least those who have the qualities to make themselves agreeable independent of their rank.”

“Is there nothing like a court?  I cannot see who sets the mode.”

“Officially there may be something like a court, but it can be only temporary, for the personnel of it is dissolved every four years.  And society, always forming and reforming, as the voters of the republic dictate, is almost independent of the Government, and has nothing of the social caste of Berlin or London.”

“You make quite an ideal picture.”

“Oh, I dare say it is not at all ideal; only it is rather fluid, and interesting, to see how society, without caste and subject to such constant change, can still be what is called ‘society.’  And I am told that while it is all open in a certain way, it nevertheless selects itself into agreeable groups, much as society does elsewhere.  Yes, you ought to see what a democracy can do in this way.”

“But I am told that money makes your aristocracy here.”

“Very likely rich people think they are an aristocracy.  You see, Mr. Lyon, I don’t know much about the great world.  Mrs. Fletcher, whose late husband was once a Representative in Washington, says that life is not nearly so simple there as it used to be, and that rich men in the Government, vying with rich men who have built fine houses and who live there permanently without any Government position, have introduced an element of expense and display that interferes very much with the natural selection of which Mr. Morgan speaks.  But you will see.  We are all right sorry to have you leave us,” Margaret added, turning towards him with frank, unclouded eyes.

“It is very good in you to say so.  I have spent here the most delightful days of my life.”

“Oh, that is charming flattery.  You will make us all very conceited.”

“Don’t mock me, Miss Debree.  I hoped I had awakened something more valuable to me than conceit,” Lyon said, with a smile.

“You have, I assure you:  gratitude.  You have opened quite another world to us.  Reading about foreign life does not give one at all the same impression of it that seeing one who is a part of it does.”

“And don’t you want to see that life for yourself?  I hope some time—­”

“Of course,” Margaret said, interrupting; “all Americans expect to go to Europe.  I have a friend who says she should be mortified if she reached heaven and there had to confess that she never had seen Europe.  It is one of the things that is expected of a person.  Though you know now that the embarrassing question that everybody has to answer is, ’Have you been to Alaska?’ Have you been to Alaska, Mr. Lyon?”

This icy suggestion seemed very inopportune to Lyon.  He rose and walked a step or two, and stood by the fire facing her.  He confessed, looking down, that he had not been in Alaska, and he had no desire to go there.  “In fact, Miss Debree,” he said, with effort at speaking lightly, “I fear I am not in a geographical mood today.  I came to say good-by, and—­and—­”