"So you can understand it's a great deal to miss."
"Yes, indeed. Let me see; wasn't your first wife English?"
"Maggie—yes; oh, a charming creature, Miss Rantzau; I wish you could have seen her. The loveliest brown eyes, and hair as black as a raven's wing, and a complexion of milk and roses. And the sweetest disposition; good inside and out she was. Too good, I suppose, for this world as well as for me."
"Your first wife did not live very long?"
"We were only married a year: hardly enough to count, really. It's just a beautiful memory——"
"And how did you come to meet her, Mr. Holm?"
"It was in Birmingham—I was over there on business. I dare say you've noticed I put in an English word now and again in talking; it's all from the time of my first marriage."
"Yes, I have noticed you use foreign words now and again."
"It's all from those days with Maggie. Oh, you should have heard her say: 'I love you, darling.' Lord save us, what a lovely creature she was! I declare I love England myself now, all for Maggie's sake."
"And your son, the engineer, she was his mother?"