"You English are so wonderful! Full of your prejudices," she said in a contemplative way. "Bulldog tenacity of purpose, whether you are right or wrong. Things are a custom, and they must be done, or it is not 'playing the game,'" and she imitated a set English voice, her beautiful mouth pursed up, until Paul had to use violent restraint with himself to keep from kissing it. "A wonderful people—mostly gentlemen and generally honest, but of a common sense that is disastrous to sentiment or romance. If you were not so polished, and lazy and strong—and beautiful to look at, one would not consider you much beyond the German."
"Not consider us beyond a beastly German!" exclaimed Paul indignantly.
And the lady laughed like a child.
"Oh! you darling Paul!" she said. "You dear, insular, arrogant
Englishman! You have no equal in the world!"
Paul was offended.
"If you had said an Austrian now—but a German—" he growled sulkily.
"The Austrians are charming," allowed the lady, "but they err the other way; they have not enough common sense, they are only great gentlemen. Also, they are naturally awake, whereas you English are naturally asleep, and you yourself are the Sleeping Beauty, Paul."
They had climbed up the path now some two hundred feet, and all around them were stripling beeches of an unnaturally exquisite green, as fresh and pure and light almost as leaves of the forced lily of the valley.
The whole world throbbed with youth and freshness, and here and there, wide of the path, by a mossy stone, a gentian raised its azure head, "small essences of sky;" the lady called them.
"Let us sit down on this piece of rock," Paul said. "I want to hear why I am the Sleeping Beauty. It is so long since I read the story. But wasn't it about a girl, not a man—and didn't she get wakened up by a—kiss?"