Walter was never convinced. I used to say to him, “Don’t you call your own owner a perfect lady?”
“Yes,” he would say uneasily, “yet her manners in repose, haven’t the perfect repose that characterises the pose of women abroad.”
By abroad he meant “Europe,” which he never would say. Europe was “the continent” to him. England, Scotland and Ireland were “home.”
“But you never were in Ireland,” I used to say to him, “how can you call it ‘home’?”
“It is in the old country,” he would reply seriously.
To come back to the ladies. Walter or Sir Walter, as he preferred being called, liked a dull, dead stillness of manner—a kind of “I’ve-just-been-to-a-funeral,” or “I’m-just-going-to-one,” air.
Now I like liveliness in women. I’ve been abroad, and though I admire Englishwomen and Scotchwomen, you can’t have as much fun with them, nor can you tell what they’re thinking about as quickly as you can read an American or a Frenchwoman. However, every dog to his liking. Give me gaiety and fun—Sir Walter can keep his goddesses and statues.
Miss Stanna just suited me to-night. Her eyes were dancing, and her little black pumps could scarcely keep on the sidewalk.
“What is the matter with you?” asked my master uneasily.
He was one of the executors of her father’s estate, and took a business, as well as a friendly interest in the family.