She saw her country, its people, its newspapers, its literature, innocently rejoiced by the alliances its charming young women contracted with foreign rank.

She saw it affectionately, gleefully, rubbing its hands over its duchesses, its countesses, its miladies.

The American Eagle spread its wings and flapped them sometimes a trifle, over this new but so natural and inevitable triumph of its virgins.

It was of course only "American" that such things should happen.

America ruled the universe, and its women ruled America, bullying it a little, prettily, perhaps.