"Perhaps—of course. I was speaking of her in the abstract, merely. But is it not true that the marked characteristic of all Englishmen is tyranny? Don't they rule wherever they go? Aren't they always and everywhere the dominant class—the oppressors? Watch the British tourist in any far country. Does he ever conform to its customs in the least? No, he forces them to come to his ways. You will see this in every port we enter, every hotel we visit. English ideas govern everything."
"But why shouldn't they?" asked Faith, feeling as if rather beyond her depth, but bound to be loyal to her country. "If they have conquered these people, haven't they the right to make laws for them?"
"Oh, laws! Yes. But not to strip them of all originality, all independent thought and manner. They need not change their tastes, their habits, their traditions—but there! what does a girl like you know, or care, about all this, to be sure? Your wings have never felt the cold shears of British superiority, nor your heart been wounded by the sneers and scorn of her aristocracy."
She smiled bitterly, and Faith was puzzled to know what she could mean when she, herself, was a distinguished member of the class she seemed to take issue with.
They were separated then, and Faith borne on by the younger ones, but as she looked out over the bay, with its forest of shipping, and down at the terraced streets just below, she thought it a strange thing that so favored a woman should rail at her own country and kinsmen. It oppressed her loyal little heart, for she had begun to like the titled lady, and hated to find so grave a flaw in her nature.
The signal house, perched like an eagle's nest on its rocky spur, proved intensely interesting, though it was difficult to remember what all the instruments were for, while the signal flags and their many combinations were a complete mystery. Perhaps they enjoyed all the more the visit to the tailless monkeys, that Dwight insisted upon later, where they did not expect to be learned, but only to look and laugh to their young hearts' content.
Dwight was anxious to own one, but his uncle resisted his entreaties, declaring that monkeys—with, or without tails—would be a drug in the market long before they returned to New York.
It was late afternoon when they steamed out of the New Mole, and as they looked back upon the precipitous eastern face of Gibraltar, and watched the signal station, which now seemed sitting on a mere knife-edge of rock, and the roads winding up like paths for birds to light on, it did not seem as if they could have found them so roomy when on the spot. In dreamy mood Faith watched the surf, ceaselessly beating itself against that massive wall, only to fall back bruised and broken. It saddened her, and she was not surprised, after the first shock of it, to see that Lady Moreham, standing near by, was gazing also, with tear-filled eyes.
As Faith discovered her emotion, the lady, believing herself unobserved, turned with a gesture that was eloquent of despair, and Faith heard her murmuring, "It is like my life—oh! pitiless, pitiless."
Half frightened, the girl slipped behind an intervening barrier, and stole away.