Our callers looked at each other and Herbert Bayliss hastily changed the subject. After they had gone I ventured to thank my champion for coming to the rescue of my sporting countrymen. She flashed an indignant glance at me.
“Why do you say such things?” she demanded. “You know they weren't true.”
“What was the use of saying anything else? They have read the accounts of football games which American penny-a-line correspondents send to the London papers and nothing I could say would change their convictions.”
“It doesn't make any difference. You should say what you think. To sit there and let them—Oh, it is ridiculous!”
“My feelings were not hurt. Their ideas will broaden by and by, when they are as old as I am. They're young now.”
This charitable remark seemed to have the effect of making her more indignant than ever.
“Nonsense!” she cried. “You speak as if you were an Old Testament patriarch.”
Hephzy put in a word.
“Why, Frances,” she said, “I thought you didn't like America.”
“I don't. Of course I don't. But it makes me lose patience to have him sit there and agree to everything those boys say. Why didn't he answer them as he should? If I were an American no one—NO one should rag me about my country without getting as good as they gave.”