Jane drew a quick breath. "I'd like to," she said honestly.
At that very moment Mrs. Belknap, becomingly veiled and gowned and leaning back complacently against the luxurious cushions of Mrs. Sloan's new automobile, was saying to her hostess: "Oh, thank you so much for thinking to inquire after my brother! Yes, John is spending the day at the country club; he used to be a champion golf player—did you know it? and he enjoys a day on the links beyond anything." Then this sapient young matron permitted the carking cares of everyday life to trail away into the dust-laden distance with the mellow honking of the great horn—an experiment which Jane and John Everett were also trying to their mutual satisfaction on the sun-lit reaches of the Bronx River.
The boat which they hired at a rickety little landing stage was an unwieldy flat-iron shaped scow, designed with an eye to the safety of the inexperienced public as well as the profit of the owner; but Jane, bright-eyed and pink cheeked, seated in the big square stern, was not too far away from John on the rower's seat, and the unwieldy craft presently carried the two of them around a wooded bend, out of sight of a group of roystering picnickers on the bank, into a quiet nook where the tall trees looked down at their reflection in the lazily flowing water.
"It reminds me," said Jane with a sigh, "of England; there is a river like this near Uncle Robert's place in Kent, only it isn't muddy like this."
"One has to be far from home to really appreciate its strong points," he observed meditatively; "I never shall forget how I felt after nearly a year abroad when I came suddenly upon the American flag waving over a consulate building somewhere in Italy. I hadn't an idea up to that moment that I was particularly patriotic, and I'd been enjoying my trip immensely, but I could have fallen on the neck of the wizened little chap inside just because he was born in Schenectady, New York. But as a matter of fact, Jane, our rivers are not all muddy; you ought to travel about and see more of America before you allow yourself to form cast-iron opinions about it. You've seen nothing but our seamy side yet, and quite naturally you can't help setting America down as a very disagreeable place, and bunching all Americans as cads."
Jane's brilliant little face dimpled mischievously. "Oh, no, I don't," she said sweetly; "I have the highest possible esteem for Bertha Forbes. She is an American and a very superior person, I am sure."
"You mean by that, I suppose, that you think her fair-minded and kind-hearted; don't you?"
"I suppose I do," admitted Jane. "Bertha is clever, too, and amusing—sometimes."
"Nearly all Americans are clever and amusing, in spots," he said confidently, "and numbers of us can fill the rest of the bill clear down to the ground; you'll see, Jane, when you come to know us better."