He took the glass and set it on the pedestal of the statuette beside
him, and, as in duty bound, returned to the lady. She was an extremely
pretty little woman, with soft brown hair and extremely bright eyes,
which, notwithstanding their brightness, were not at all hard. He felt,
rather than knew, that she was perfectly dressed, and he noticed that
she wore remarkably fine diamonds. They sparkled and glittered in her
hair, on her bosom, on her wrists, and on her fingers.
He had never seen her before, and he wondered who she was.
"You have just come up from the country?" she said.
The accent with which she made this rather startling remark betrayed her
nationality to Drake. The American accent, when it is voiced by a person
of culture and refinement, is an extremely pretty one; the slight drawl
is musical, and the emphasis which is given to words not usually made
emphatic, is attractive.
"Yes," said Drake. "But how did you know that?"
"Your face and hands are so brown," she replied, with a frankness which
was robbed of all offense by her placidity and unself-consciousness.
"Nearly all the men one meets here are so colorless. I suppose it is
because you have so little air and sun in London. At first, one is
afraid that everybody is ill; but after a time one gets used to it."
Drake was amused and a little interested.
"Have the men in America so much color?" he asked.
"Well, how did you know I was an American?" she inquired, with a
charming little air of surprise. "I suppose my speech betrayed me? That
is so annoying. I thought I had almost entirely lost my accent."
"I don't know why you should want to lose it," said Drake, honestly
enough. "It's five hundred times better than our London one!"
"I didn't say I wanted to exchange it for that," she remarked.
"Don't exchange it for any other, if I may be permitted to say so."
"That's very good of you," she said; "but isn't it rather like asking
the leopard not to change his spots? And after all, I don't know why we
shouldn't be as proud of our accent as you are of yours."
"I'm quite certain I'm not proud of mine," said Drake.
She smiled up at him over her fan; a small and costly painted affair,
with diamonds incrusted in the handle.
"You are more modest than most Englishmen," she said.