the wider suburbs of London."

Lady Blanchemain's eyes lighted approvingly. Afterwards she looked half
serious.

"True," she discriminated, "London has spread pretty well over the whole
of Europe; but England, thanks be to goodness, still remains mercifully
small."

"Yes," agreed the young man, though with a lilt of dubiety, and a frown
of excogitation, as if he weren't sure that he had quite caught her
drift.

"The mercy of it is," she smilingly pointed out, "that English folk,
decent ones, have no need to fight shy of each other when they meet as
strangers. We all know more or less about each other by hearsay, or
about each other's people; and we're all pretty sure to have some common
acquaintances. The smallness of England makes for sociability and
confidence."

"It ought to, one would think," the young man admitted. "But does it, in
fact? It had somehow got stuck in my head that English folk, meeting as
strangers, were rather apt to glare. We're most of us in such a funk,
you see, lest, if we treat a stranger with civility, he should turn out
not to be a duke."

"Oh," cried Lady Blanchemain, with merriment, "you forget that I said
_decent_. I meant, of course, folk who _are_ dukes. We're all dukes--or
bagmen."