She was blatantly pretty, and began to talk at once, apparently quite oblivious of the self-evident fact that I wanted to absorb in silence that flying green, to which her own nature was evidently quite impervious.
“Your first trip?” she said, though I never knew how she guessed it. “My! it must be quite an event in your life. Now it’s only an incident in mine.”
“You come often, then?” said I, not specially interested.
“The one with the plaid travelling-cap.”
“Yes; that is, we shall come every summer now. You see, he made a lot of money in copper,—that’s my husband over there, the one with the plaid travelling-cap,—so we can travel as much as we like. We’ve planned a long trip for this year, and we’ve got to hustle, I can tell you. I’m awfully systematic. I’ve bought all the Baedekers, and this year I’m going to see everything that’s marked with a double star. You know those are the ‘sights which should on no account be omitted.’ Then next year we’ll do up the single stars, and after that we can take things more leisurely.”
“You’ve never been over before, then?” I observed.
“No,” she admitted, a little reluctantly; “I went to California last year. I think Americans ought to see their own country first.”
I couldn’t help wishing she had chosen this year for her California trip, but the accumulation of green vision had somehow magicked me into a mood of cooing amiability, and I good-naturedly assisted her to prattle on, by offering an encouraging word now and then.
“He’s so good to me,” she said, nodding toward her husband. “He says he welcomes the coming and speeds the parting dollar. Isn’t that cute? He’s an awfully witty man.”