Part 16

I couldn't help wondering whether his friends called him "Pot," for short, and the thought made me smile more than I would have smiled at a stranger if it hadn't popped into my head. This seemed to encourage him, which I regretted; because you can see at once by his face that he isn't the kind who needs encouragement. It is something like Mrs. Ess Kay's face, only younger, with her square chin, and bold blue eyes as pale as hers. The likeness is all the stronger because Mr. Parker wears no moustache or beard, and his dark hair, which falls in two straight, thick blocks over his forehead, is parted in the middle. You would know, if you saw him riding a white bear at the North Pole, that he was an American young man. Why, or how, I'm not experienced enough in Americans to tell, but I'm beginning to think that all American men, and all American women, have a dim sort of family likeness to each other. With the girls, it's their chins and the way they do their hair; but with the men it's more mysterious. They look less lazy and more feverish than our men, yet at the same time more humorous; and their clothes seem always to be new.

Mrs. Ess Kay's nose turns down, and her brother's turns up, which is the principal difference in their features, and his makes him look very impudent, though rather clever and amusing.

"My sister wrote me about your dimples, Lady Betty," said he, when I smiled; and I screwed my mouth into prunes and prisms as quickly as I could.

"I should have thought such things were hardly worth writing about," said I.

"My impression is that they're worth about a million dollars an eighth of an inch," he replied, "and I bet they'd fetch that in a bear market."

I began to wish that Mrs. Ess Kay or Sally would come, for I'm not used to having persons who have just introduced themselves make remarks on my dimples or other features.

"Don't be mad with me," he went on, "or I shall think I've estimated them too low. On mature consideration, as we soldier chaps say at a court-martial, I should be inclined to set them higher. If you'll just show them again----"

"I think, if you don't mind," said I, "that I'd rather speak of the weather."

"I'm afraid you're not used to Americans," said he.

"I've met several, crossing, but none of them talked to me about--such things," I replied, rather primly.

"If they had, I should have challenged them," he retorted. "While you're staying with my sister, I consider myself a sort of guardian of yours, and part of my duty will be to keep off men--other men--with a stick, you see."

"No, I don't see," said I. "Not that there will be the least necessity for you to do anything of the sort."

"Oh, won't there? Well, you just wait till you get to Newport, and you'll find out differently. I've applied for leave on purpose to help Kath protect you, and I expect to put on a suit of chain armour under my clothes. But first, you're coming to visit me, at West Point."

"I don't think I am," I said.

"Oh, but you are. It's a promise of Kath's. And shan't I be proud to show you around? You shall see Flirtation Walk the first thing. It's what the ladies admire the most, at the Point. Perhaps you've heard of it?"

"No," said I. "And I never heard of West Point. Is it a suburb of New York?"

"Not much. It's our American Sandhurst. But you English people don't know anything about this side. I guess, now, you think that Florida is in South America?"

"I haven't thought about it yet," I replied.

"That's right. I don't ask anything better than to teach you the geography of the United States. We'll begin with Flirtation Walk. But see here, Lady Betty, that rose you've got on isn't a good sample of what we can grow over here. Didn't that maid of my sister's take you something a little better from me?"

"Something much bigger and grander," I said, feeling loyal to my poor white bud. "I was meaning to thank you."

"Don't do that; the things aren't worth it. I only wanted to know whether that French female had played me false or not. But here comes my sister. I wish she'd taken longer to do up her back hair. Now, I'll give you your wish, and talk about the weather. Mighty hot day, isn't it? Won't you have a cocktail? I'd just finished mine when you came down."

"Of course Betty will have a cocktail; we all do before dinner," said Mrs. Ess Kay, sailing towards us in a trailing white film of lace.

But Betty didn't have one, though at this moment several little glasses appeared on a tray. I was sure that Mother would not approve of cocktails for me, as it sounds so fast for a young girl who isn't yet out. When I excused myself, Mrs. Ess Kay laughed, and said, "Then what about that sherry cobbler?"

While I was trying to think what she meant, Sally came into the hall, and immediately after I was surprised by a kind of musical moaning which began suddenly and kept on for a long time.

"That's the Japanese gong," said Mrs. Ess Kay, when I looked round to see where the sound came from. "It's for dinner. Potter, give Betty your arm."

I was glad she didn't use that nickname I'd been thinking of, for if she had, I should certainly have laughed.

We began dinner by eating pinky-yellow melons cut in half and filled with chopped ice. I thought at first that it must be a mistake, and they ought to have come in at dessert, but everybody else ate theirs without appearing disconcerted, so I did mine, and it was good. So were all the other things that followed in a long procession, though they were very strange and some of them I shouldn't have known how to eat if Mr. Parker, whose place was next to mine, hadn't told me.

We had bouillon partly frozen, instead of soup; and then came the most extraordinary little fried animals which quite startled me, they were so like exaggerated brown spiders, done in egg and breadcrumbs. "Soft shell crabs, dear child," said Mrs. Ess Kay, "and you eat every bit, down to the tippiest end of his claw."