"I really cannot say. They both—but particularly the elder sister, my cousin Joanna—were new to my experience. I do not feel that I have even yet placed them in my mind. The members of all nations above a certain social level can meet on common ground. It is below that level national tendencies and eccentricities actually declare themselves. I went over, strong in the conceit of ignorance. I supposed I knew all about it and should find myself quite at home. I was colossally mistaken. The manners and mental attitude of the provincial middle-class English were a revelation to me of the blighting effects of a sea frontier and a Puritan descent. The men have but three subjects of conversation—politics, games, and their own importance. The women"—Adrian paused, looking full at Madame St. Leger—"I am very, very sorry for the women. Ah! dear Madame," he added, "let us return devout thanks that we were born on this side, the humane, the amiable, the artistic side of the Channel, you and I. For they are really a very uncomfortable people those middle-class Anglo-Saxons. Until I spent this age-long three weeks among them I had no conception what a convinced Catholic—in sentiment, if not, to my shame, altogether in practice—and thorough-paced Latin I was!"
During the above harangue Gabrielle's hands remained idle. He was really very good, meeting her thus half-way in the suppression of the personal and amatory note. She was obliged to him, of course; yet, in honest truth, was she so very much pleased by his readiness to take the hint? She could not but ask herself that—and then hurry away, so to speak, from the answer, her fingers in her pretty ears. His cue was an intelligent exchange of ideas then? An excellent one!—She stopped her ears more resolutely.—She, too, would be intelligent.
"Increased faith and increased patriotism as the result of your journey! How admirable! Clearly it is highly beneficial to one's morale to cross the Channel. Were it rather later in the year, and were the weather less inclement, I should be disposed to take the little cure, without delay, myself."
"It would not suit you in the least," Adrian asserted. "You would dislike it all quite enormously."
Gabrielle St. Leger at the Tower House! The idea produced in him a violent unreasoning repulsion, as though she ran some actual physical danger. Heaven forbid!
"I should not go with any purpose of enjoyment, but rather as a penance, hoping the dislike of what I found over there might heighten my appreciation of all my blessings here at home."
Whereupon Adrian, careless of diplomacy, clutched at his chance.
"Then you are not so entirely satisfied, chère Madame et amie," he cried, laughing a little in his eagerness, "not so utterly happy and content!"
"Is one ever as devout, ever as patriotic, as one ought to be?" she asked, gravely.
"Or as sincere?" he returned, with corresponding gravity.