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Page 3
"Of course, I never accepted any of them, even for a moment. But they
had such a way of taking things for granted. Why one man actually
thought I was engaged to him!"
"Really!" said Arthur. "May I inquire----"
"No, dear," I replied, "I think not. I couldn't tell anybody about
it--for his sake. It was all a silly mistake. Some of them," I added
thoughtfully, "were very stupid."
"Judging from the specimens that find their way over here," Arthur
remarked, "I should say there was plenty of room in their heads for
their brains."
Arthur was sitting on the other side of the fireplace, and by this time
his expression was aggressive. I thought his remark unnecessarily
caustic, but I did not challenge it.
"_Some_ of them were stupid," I repeated, "but they were nearly all
nice." And I went on to say that what Chicago people as a whole thought
about it I didn't know and I didn't care, but so far as _my_ experience
went the English were the loveliest nation in the world.
"A nation like a box of strawberries," Mr. Page suggested, "all the big
ones on top, all the little ones at the bottom."
"That doesn't matter to us," I replied cheerfully, "we never get any
further than the top. And you'll admit there's a great tendency for
little ones to shake down. It's only a question of time. They've had so
much time in England. You see the effects of it everywhere."
"Not at all. By no means. _Our_ little strawberries rise," he declared.
"Do they? Dear me, so they do! I suppose the American law of gravity is
different. In England they would certainly smile at that."
Arthur said nothing, but his whole bearing expressed a contempt for
puns.
"Of course," I said, "I mean the loveliest nation after Americans."
I thought he might have taken that for granted. Instead, he looked
incredulous and smiled, in an observing, superior way.
"Why do you say 'ahfter'?" he asked. His tone was sweetly acidulated.
"Why do you say 'affter'?" I replied simply.
"Because," he answered with quite unnecessary emphasis, "in the part of
the world I come from everybody says it. Because my mother has brought
me up to say it."
"Oh," I said, looking at the lamp, "they say it like that in other parts
of the world too. In Yorkshire--and such places. As far as _mothers_ go,
I must tell you that momma approves of my pronunciation. She likes it
better than anything else I have brought back with me--even my
tailor-mades--and thinks it wonderful that I should have acquired it in
the time."
"Don't you think you could remember a little of your good old American?
Doesn't it seem to come back to you?"
All the Wicks hate sarcasm, especially from those they love, and I
certainly had not outgrown my fondness for Mr. Page at this time.
"It all came back to me, my dear Arthur," I said, "the moment you opened
your lips!"
At that not only Mr. Page's features and his shirt front, but his whole
personality seemed to stiffen. He sat up and made an outward movement on
the seat of his chair which signified, "My hat and overcoat are in the
hall, and if you do not at once retract----"
"Rather than allow anything to issue from them which would imply that I
was not an American I would keep them closed for ever," he said.
"You needn't worry about that," I observed. "Nothing ever will. But I
don't know why we should _glory_ in talking through our noses."
Involuntarily I played with my engagement ring, slipping it up and
down, as I spoke.
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