“I never saw anything like him,” said Harry, “he is like a child—and very simple in his ways of thinking. He is twenty times better than I am, and yet I feel sometimes as if I must laugh. You don’t know what strange people we English are, Miss Bonamy. We can see how good a thing is, and yet we can’t help laughing if it is a little out of the way.”
“Then,” said Rita, “tell me why. I have no way of knowing but what people tell me. There are things said about Englishmen just as there are things said about women, in general. Now the women I know are quite unlike each other. I cannot imagine any one thing that they would all think or do. Are Englishmen all the same?”
“Now, Oliver, be on your guard,” said her father, “that’s one of her theories. She wants to push you into a corner and compel you to commit yourself. Women have this and that way of thinking, we all say, don’t we? and it’s quite true. ‘Really!’ says this little person, ‘I suppose, then, women are all exactly like each other?’ Have a care, my young friend; she looks innocent, but I don’t advise you to let yourself fall into her hands.”
“When I said Englishmen”—said Harry, faltering; then he gathered a little boldness—“We are not all like each other: but this is rather true of all of us—at least, so I think: we jeer at things we don’t understand.”
“Bravo,” said the Vice-Consul, clapping his hands, “I see you understand our dear countrymen.”
“We don’t mean much harm,” said Harry, led on beyond himself. “I suppose that in other countries just the same happens in different ways. When people act in a way we should not think of acting, we think it is so strange that we—laugh at them. It is wrong, I have no doubt, and silly, but still we do it. The first thing is, we laugh at them—Italians don’t seem to do so. They are most polite.”
“And the French don’t do it.”
“Papa, they do a great deal worse,” said Rita; “for the language, for instance, they are far more hard than you. When anyone speaks English badly, you laugh, but you don’t mind. The Frenchman doesn’t laugh, he is horribly polite—but he thinks the worse of you for ever after. I see what you mean. There is a kind of a way you have of looking at things in the same light, which does not mean that you are alike, or all thinking in the same way. Perhaps,” said Rita, meditatively, “that may be true of Englishmen—and women too. Yes, I see how that might be true. I am very much obliged to you, Mr. Oliver, for putting it in so clear a light.”
Harry could only stare at her with a mixture of amazement and gratification. He to be applauded for putting something in a clear light! and by Rita, who knew so much more than he did. He could not but laugh within himself at the unlikelihood of it; yet he was gratified by the thought.