“Why, the more I saw of Europe, the more I loved dear old America,” she declared, in her deep voice.
She was just as homesick as she could be, she said, and couldn’t get back to Minneapolis fast enough. Did he know the West?—and again she appeared shocked at discovering the profundities of his ignorance concerning it. Oh, he must certainly see the West. No American could begin to appreciate his country till he had seen the West. The people out there were so alive, so go-ahead; and they took such an interest in all forms of culture too, in literature, music, painting, the drama. “Why, look at the big magazines,—they depend for their circulation on the West.” And then, the homes of the West! “Oh, if I lived in Europe, I should lose my faith in human nature. Western people are so warmhearted. I’m afraid you’re awfully unpatriotic, Mr. Aigrefield.”
He reminded her that patriotism was the last refuge of a scoundrel; and anyhow, he pleaded, it was too much to expect of one small man that he should be patriotic for a continent. But she shook her head at his perversity, and guessed he’d be proud enough of his Continent if he had seen it, and insisted that he must come to Minneapolis, and look round.
He liked her amazingly. As their voyage grew older, he found himself taking a greater and greater pleasure in her propinquity; looking forward with something akin to eagerness to meeting her on deck, as he accomplished his morning toilet; and recalling fondly their commerce of the day, as he turned in at night. Besides, the charm of her strong, irregular beauty grew upon him, and he said to her, smiling, “When I come to Minneapolis you must let me try a portrait of you.”
“Ah, then you are really coming?” she demanded, striving to fix him in a pious resolution.
He laughed vaguely, and she protested, “Oh, shame, Mr. Aigrefield, now you are wriggling out!”
He felt that she was sweet and sound and honest: direct, vigorous, bracing: he wondered if indeed she might not owe these qualities, in some part, to her native Western soil; and he admitted that the West was beginning to take a place in his affections. Heretofore, it had been a mere geographical abstraction for him, and one he would have shrunk from realising through experience. He imagined the colouring would be hard, the action violent, the atmosphere raw and rough.
“Well, whether I really come or not, I am sure I should really like to,” he said now.
“That’s such an innocent desire,” she cried, with a touch of mockery. “I don’t think it would be selfish to indulge it.”
“And if I do come, you will sit for me?”