"Were you with Michael ?" "No, Lady Barbara.

I had no pearls." "And are you naturalised English ?" she asked.
"No; I am German." She slid swiftly off the topic.
"Do you wonder I ask, with your talking English so perfectly ?" she said.
"You should hear me talking French when we are entertaining Ambassadors and that sort of persons.

I talk it so fast that nobody can understand a word I say.

That is a defensive measure, you must observe, because even if I talked it quite slowly they would understand just as little.

But they think it is the pace that stupefies them, and they leave me in a curious, dazed condition.