"I can believe it; but I've an idea that Mr. Grant is not the only person to whom thanks are due."
Flora looked at him sharply, but she made no direct answer.
"Your partner," she said, "compels one's sympathy."
"And one's liking. I don't know how he does so, and it isn't from any conscious desire. I suppose it's a gift of his."
Seeing she was interested, he went on with a thoughtful air:
"You see, George isn't witty, and you wouldn't consider him handsome. In fact, sometimes he's inclined to be dull, but you feel that he's the kind of man you can rely on. There's not a trace of meanness in him, and he never breaks his word. In my opinion, he has a number of the useful English virtues."
"What are they, and are they peculiarly English?"
"I'll call them Teutonic; I believe that's their origin. You people and your neighbors across the frontier have your share of them."
"Thanks," smiled Flora. "But you haven't begun the catalogue."
"Things are often easier to recognize than to describe. At the top of the list, and really comprising the rest of it, I'd place, in the language of the country, the practical ability to 'get there.' We're not in the highest degree intellectual; we're not as a rule worshipers of beauty—that's made obvious by the prairie towns—and to be thought poetical makes us shy. In fact, our artistic taste is strongly defective."