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Page 12
"I didn't say anything of the kind," replied Edith quickly, her cheeks
pink with excitement. "I don't know anything about Englishmen or the
domestic system of England, and I never expect to. But, if what I have
heard is true, it is a system that tends to make men mortally selfish;
and selfish people, whether they are men or women, and whether they know
it or not, are _all_ monsters. But I apologize for my remarks, and, as I
am not interested in the subject _in the least_, we will talk of
something else, if you please."
This very feminine conclusion, delivered loftily and with sudden
reserve, left Mr. Heathcote in anything but an agreeable frame of mind,
and for an hour or two made him doubt the wisdom of international
marriages; but this mood passed away, and he remained a fixture at the
_maison_ Bascombe, where the very postman came to know him and
generously sympathized with the malady from which he was suffering. Nor
was this the only house in which he was made very welcome. Baltimore is
one of many American cities that suffer from the vague but painful
accusation of being "provincial;" but, admitting this dreadful charge,
it has social, gastronomic, and other charms of its own that ought to
compensate for the absence of that doubtful good, cosmopolitanism. Mr.
Heathcote certainly found no fault with it, and did not miss the
population, pauperism, or other institutions of Paris, London, or
Vienna. On the contrary, he took very kindly to the pretty place, and
heartily liked the people. There was nothing oppressive or ostentatious
in the attentions he received, but just the cordiality, grace, and charm
of an old-established society of most refined traditions, perfect
_savoir-vivre_, and chronic hospitality.
"You are making a Baltimorean of me, you are so awfully kind to me," he
would say, pronouncing the _a_ in Bal as he would have done in sal; but
the truth was that he had become primarily a Bascomite and only very
incidentally a Baltimorean. The city counts hundreds of such converts
every year. He was so happy and entirely content that he would have
quite forgotten what it was to be bored just at this period but for
certain individuals,--a boastful, disagreeable Irishman, who fastened
upon him apparently for no other reason than that he might abuse England
at great length and talk of his own valor, accomplishments, and
"paddygree" (as he very properly called the record that established his
connection with Brian Boroo and Irish kings generally), and a lady who
seemed to take the most astounding, unquenchable interest in the English
nobility, as more than one lady had seemed to him to do, to his great
annoyance.
"I don't know a bit about them, I assure you," he said to her; "but I
have the 'Peerage.' If you would like to see that, I will send it you
with pleasure."
This only diverted her conversation into a different but equally
distasteful channel,--the great distinction and antiquity of her own
family. It really seemed as though she had a dread of Mr. Heathcote's
leaving the country with some wrong impression on this important subject
and was determined that he should be put in possession of all the
information she had or imagined herself to have about it. She talked to
him about it so much that the poor man was at incredible pains to keep
out of her way.
"I don't care a brass copper about her," he complained to Edith; "and
if the family has been producing women like her as long as she says, and
is going on at it, all I can say is that it is a pity they have lasted
this long, and the sooner they die out the better. What do I care about
her family, pray? I never heard as much about family in all my life, I
give you my word, as I have done since I came to America. The stories
told me are something wonderful,--all about the two brothers that left
England, and all that, you know. They seem all to have come away in
pairs, like the animals in the ark. I said to one fellow that was
beginning with those two brothers, '_Couldn't you make it three_, don't
you think?' And you'll not believe me, but I speak quite without
exaggeration, when I say that one woman out in Raising assured me
gravely that she was descended from the houses of York and Lancaster!"
"_She didn't!"_ exclaimed Edith. "That is, if she did, she must have
been _crazy_; and I won't have you going back to England and giving
false impressions of us by repeating such stories. Promise me that you
will never repeat it there."
"Oh, that's all right," he replied soothingly. "It's an extreme case, I
grant, and I'll say no more about it if it vexes you, but it is a true
tale all the same. Howe was her name, I remember; and I felt like
saying,--I'll eat my hand if I understand Howe this can possibly
be,'--that's in the Bab Ballads,--but I didn't."
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