For simple, childlike vanity and self-consciousness nothing equals an Italian Secretary of Legation at twenty-five.

Yet conscious that the effect of his personal beauty would perhaps be diminished by permanent silence, he ventured to murmur presently: "Do you not find it very strange, this society in America ?" "Society!" laughed Sybil with gay contempt.

"There are no snakes in America, any more than in Norway." "Snakes, mademoiselle!" repeated Orsini, with the doubtful expression of one who is not quite certain whether he shall risk walking on thin ice, and decides to go softly: "Snakes! Indeed they would rather be doves I would call them." A kind laugh from Sybil strengthened into conviction his hope that he had made a joke in this unknown tongue.

His face brightened, his confidence returned; once or twice he softly repeated to himself: "Not snakes; they would be doves!" But Mrs.Lee's sensitive ear had caught Sybil's remark, and detected in it a certain tone of condescension which was not to her taste.
The impassive countenances of these bland young Secretaries of Legation seemed to acquiesce far too much as a matter of course in the idea that there was no society except in the old world.

She broke into the conversation with an emphasis that fluttered the dove-cote: "Society in America?
Indeed there is society in America, and very good society too; but it has a code of its own, and new-comers seldom understand it.