"True," I responded. "Momma said not another hour of her husband's Aunt Caroline would she ever willingly endure. She said she would spend her entire life, if necessary, in avoiding the woman." But Dicky had not followed the drift of my thought.
I added vaguely, "I hope she will understand it"—I really couldn't be more definite—and bade Mr. Dod good-night. He held my hand absent-mindedly for a moment, and mentioned the effectiveness of the Ponte Vecchio from that point of view.
"I didn't feel bound to change my tickets less ten per cent.," he said hopefully, "and we're sure to come across them early and often. In the meantime you might try and soften me a little—about Lot's wife."
Next day, in the Ufizzi, it was no surprise to meet the Miss Binghams. We had a guilty consciousness of fellow-citizenship as we recognised them, and did our best to look as if two weeks were quite long enough to be forgotten in, but they seemed charitable and forgiving on this account, said they had looked out for us everywhere, and had we seen the cuttings in the Vatican?
"The statues, you know," explained Miss Cora kindly, seeing that we did not comprehend. "Marvellous—simply marvellous! We enjoyed nothing so much as the marble department. It takes it out of you though—we were awfully done afterwards."
I wondered what Phidias would have said to the "cuttings," and whether the Miss Binghams imagined it a Briticism. It also occurred to me that one should never mix one's colloquialisms; but that, of course, did not prevent their coming round with us. I believe they did it partly to diffuse their guide among a larger party. He was hanging, as they came up, upon Miss Cora's reluctant earring, so to speak, and she was mechanically saying, "Yes! Yes! Yes!" to his representations. "I suppose," said she inadvertently, "there is no way of preventing their giving one information," and after that when she hospitably pressed the guide upon us we felt at liberty to be unappreciative.
I regret to write it of two maiden ladies of good New York family, and a knowledge of the world; but the Miss Binghams capitulated to Dicky Dod with a promptness and unanimity which would have been very bad for him if nobody had been there to counteract its effects. He walked between them through the vestibules, absorbing a flow of tribute from each side with a complacency which his recent trying experiences made all the more profound. There was always a something, Miss Nancy declared, about an American who had made his home in England—you could always tell. "In your case, Mr. Dod, there is an association of Bond Street. I can't describe it, but it is there. I hope you don't mind my saying so."
"Oh, no," said Dicky, "I guess it's my tailor. He lives in Bond Street;" but this was artless and not ironical. Miss Cora went further. "I should have taken Mr. Dod for an Englishman," she said, at which the miscalculated Mr. Dod looked alarmed.
"Is that so?" he responded. "Then I'll book my passage back at once. I've been over there too long. You see I've been kind of obliged to stay for reasons connected with the firm, but you ladies can take my word for it that when you get through this sort of ridiculous veneer I've picked up you'll find a regular all-wool-and-a-yard-wide city-of-Chicago American, and I'm bound to ask you not to forget it. This English way of talking is a thing that grows on a fellow unconsciously, don't you know. It wears off when you get home."
At which Miss Cora and Miss Nancy looked at each other smilingly and repeated "Don't you know" in derisive echo, and we all felt that our young friend had been too modest about his acquirements.