“So we keep our Kaisers,” said the German’s kind wife. “You are patriotic too? That is good. They look very nice standing so.” She puffed out her chest, and thrust a gloved hand into the front of her mantle.
“Were the pictures presented to the Town Hall?” Mrs. Cambridge inquired.
“No,” said Mrs. Bushytail, with reasonable pride, “the city paid for them; immense sums. They are a great deal larger than any at the Guildhall. What do you think of them?” she asked me. “You ought to be a judge of art.”
“I think they are beautiful,” I said. “They make me feel, for the first time in my life, that I should like to be married to a king. I love splash and rolls of parchment and thunderstorms. I quite see what you like about them.”
I do not know whether I meant to tease her or not. The pictures are just what I said, but I think that if I had liked her better I might have said the same thing in a different way. Anyhow, it did not do at all. My German made it worse by saying critically, “Yes, that is so, you have it quite. Now in Germany we care for the skill, for the worthiness of the picture. We make, perhaps, too much of it. And you, you care more for the sentiment—the ‘splash’ you call it? What the common people shall understand. Very good. You are quaite r-raight.”
Mercifully the fact that he had not been introduced to Mrs. Bushytail prevented her from using other weapons of destruction than a look, which glanced off his spectacles as harmlessly as summer lightning. But Mrs. Merchant was clearly uneasy, scenting trouble, but uncertain in which direction it lay. She therefore slipped away, taking me with her. Heavens! the dressing gong! and I was just going to tell you something more amusing about the Cambridges. I will write again.
Yours ever,
Georgina.
CHAPTER XVII
Unity Square, Millport.