In the meantime Olivia and Mr Glascock had moved away together, and Miss Petrie was left alone.  This was no injury to Miss Petrie, as her mind at once set itself to work on a sonnet touching the frivolity of modern social gatherings; and when she complained afterwards to Caroline that it was the curse of their mode of life that no moment could be allowed for thought, in which she referred specially to a few words that Mr Gore had addressed to her at this moment of her meditations, she was not wilfully a hypocrite.  She was painfully turning her second set of rhymes, and really believed that she had been subjected to a hardship.  In the meantime Olivia and Mr Glascock were discussing her at a distance.

‘You were being put through your facings, Mr Glascock,’ Olivia had said.

’Well; yes; and your dear friend, Miss Petrie, is rather a stern examiner.’

‘She is Carry’s ally, not mine,’ said Olivia.  Then she remembered that by saying this she might be doing her sister an injury.  Mr Glascock might object to such a bosom friend for his wife.  ’That is to say, of course we are all intimate with her? but just at this moment Carry is most in favour.’

‘She is very clever, I am quite sure,’ said he.

’Oh yes she’s a genius.  You must not doubt that on the peril of making every American in Italy your enemy.’

‘She is a poet is she not?’

‘Mr Glascock!’

‘Have I said anything wrong?’ he asked.

’Do you mean to look me in the face and tell me that you are not acquainted with her works, that you don’t know pages of them by heart, that you don’t sleep with them under your pillow, don’t travel about with them in your dressing-bag?  I’m afraid we have mistaken you, Mr Glascock.’

‘Is it so great a sin?’

’If you’ll own up honestly, I’ll tell you something in a whisper.  You have not read a word of her poems?’

‘Not a word.’

’Neither have I. Isn’t it horrible?  But, perhaps, if I heard Tennyson talking every day, I shouldn’t read Tennyson.  Familiarity does breed contempt, doesn’t it?  And then poor dear Wallachia is such a bore.  I sometimes wonder, when English people are listening to her, whether they think that American girls generally talk like that.’

‘Not all, perhaps, with that perfected eloquence.’

‘I dare say you do,’ continued Olivia, craftily.  ’That is just the way in which people form their opinions about foreigners.  Some specially self-asserting American speaks his mind louder than other people, and then you say that all Americans are self-asserting.’

‘But you are a little that way given, Miss Spalding.’

’Because we are always called upon to answer accusations against us, expressed or unexpressed.  We don’t think ourselves a bit better than you; or, if the truth were known, half as good.  We are always struggling to be as polished and easy as the French, or as sensible and dignified as the English; but when our defects are thrown in our teeth—­’