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“Yes?”

“To St. Regis’s in Connecticut.”

Amory felt a quick excitement.

“It’s being arranged,” continued Beatrice. “It’s better that you should go away. I’d have preferred you to have gone to Eton, and then to Christ Church, Oxford, but it seems impracticable now—and for the present we’ll let the university question take care of itself.”

“What are you going to do, Beatrice?”

“Heaven knows. It seems my fate to fret away my years in this country. Not for a second do I regret being American—indeed, I think that a regret typical of very vulgar people, and I feel sure we are the great coming nation—yet”—and she sighed—“I feel my life should have drowsed away close to an older, mellower civilization, a land of greens and autumnal browns——”

Amory did not answer, so his mother continued:

“My regret is that you haven’t been abroad, but still, as you are a man, it’s better that you should grow up here under the snarling eagle—is that the right term?”

Amory agreed that it was. She would not have appreciated the Japanese invasion.