"Won't you have a potato?"
"I don't care much for these European potatoes. I shouldn't know you
from an ordinary American gentleman."
"Do talk to me as if I were one," said Lord Warburton. "I don't
see how you manage to get on without potatoes; you must find so few
things to eat over here."
Henrietta was silent a little; there was a chance he was not
sincere. "I've had hardly any appetite since I've been here," she went
on at last; "so it doesn't much matter. I don't approve of you, you
know; I feel as if I ought to tell you that."
"Don't approve of me?"
"Yes; I don't suppose any one ever said such a thing to you
before, did they? I don't approve of lords as an institution. I
think the world has got beyond them- far beyond."
"Oh, so do I. I don't approve of myself in the least. Sometimes it
comes over me- how I should object to myself if I were not myself,
don't you know? But that's rather good, by the way- not to be
vainglorious."
"Why don't you give it up then?" Miss Stackpole enquired.
"Give up- a-?" asked Lord Warburton, meeting her harsh inflexion
with a very mellow one.
"Give up being a lord."
"Oh, I'm so little of one! One would really forget all about it if
you wretched Americans were not constantly reminding one.
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