"You ought to read something, papers and articles on Ireland, now and then," she says, deep but suspicious pity for him in her tone. "Considering what education costs nowadays, it is shameful the way yours has been neglected. Your college, or wherever you were, ought to be ashamed of itself. Why, I don't believe you know what a capital means."
"A capital?—in writing, do you mean?" asks he, puzzled.
"N—o; I wasn't thinking of that. You can write, I suppose," with malicious hesitation that betrays doubt. "I was speaking of the capitals of Europe. Dublin is one of them."
Unable to grasp the fact that she is mildly snubbing him, Mr. Ryde smiles gayly, and says, "Oh, really?" with an amused air that incenses her still more highly. "Was there ever," she asks herself, angrily, "so hateful a man, or so long a gravel walk!"
Having racked his brain to find something further wherewith to beguile the monotony of the way, and finding it barren, Mr. Ryde falls back upon the original subject.
"I like a white gown on a woman better than any," he says. "And so they really can make gowns in Ireland? I've been awfully disappointed, do you know?—reg'lar sold. I came over here in the full hope of seeing everybody going about in goatskins and with beads round their necks—and—er—that."
"And why are you disappointed?" asks Monica, mildly, with a provoking want of appreciation of this brilliant sally. "Are you fond of goatskins and beads? Do you wear them when 'your foot is on your native heath'?"
"Eh?—Oh, you don't understand," says this dense young man, fatally bent on explanation. "I meant to imply that the general belief with us over there"—pointing to the horizon, which would have led him to America rather than to England—"is that everybody here is half savage—d'ye see—eh?"
"Oh, yes, it's quite plain," says Miss Beresford, her eyes immovably fixed on the horizon. "'Over there' must be a most enlightened spot."
"So of course I thought the goatskins, etc., would be the order of the day," goes on Mr. Ryde, with another chuckle.