"I—I can't talk about 'landed gentry,'" he said, turning to me with a quick fierceness. "I grow violent when I do! You've no idea how hateful the whole set is to a man who has had to make his own way in the world—against them!" Then, after this burst of resentment, his mood seemed to change. "But we must talk about England," he added, with a hasty gentleness. "There are so many delightful things we can discuss! Tell me, have you been there? Do you like it?"
I nodded an energetic affirmative.
"I have been there and—I love it! But it was a long while ago, and I wasn't old enough to understand about the things which would interest me most now."
"A long while ago?"
"Yes—let me see—ten years, I believe! At all events it was the summer after we sold the rosewood furniture—and the piano. Mother was so amazed at herself for having the nerve to part with the grand piano that she had to take a sea-voyage to recover herself."
"But what a happy idea!" he commented seriously, as he looked around. "A grand piano would really be a nuisance in this cozy room."
For a long time afterward I wondered whether my very deepest feeling of admiration for him had been born at the moment I looked at him first, or when he made this remark. But I've found it's as hard to ascertain Love's birthday as it is to settle the natal hour of a medieval author.
"How long have you been in America?" I next asked, abruptly; and he looked relieved.
"Ten years—off and on," he answered briskly. "Most of the time in Pittsburgh, for my grandfather had chosen that place for me. He would not have consented to my going back to England often, if he had lived, but I have been back a number of times, for I love journeying over the face of the earth—and, strange as it may seem, I love England. Some day—when things—when my affairs—are in different shape over there I shall go back to stay."
The tea things were finally arranged by Cicely's nervous dusky hands, and with a cordial showing of the letter-but-not-spirit-hospitality, mother appeared, in the wake of the steaming kettle.