ishmen tried American cigars--those
of Mr. Westgate--and talked together as they usually talked, with many
odd silences, lapses of logic, and incongruities of transition; like
people who have grown old together and learned to supply each other's
missing phrases; or, more especially, like people thoroughly conscious
of a common point of view, so that a style of conversation superficially
lacking in finish might suffice for reference to a fund of associations
in the light of which everything was all right.

"We really seem to be going out to sea," Percy Beaumont observed. "Upon
my word, we are going back to England. He has shipped us off again. I
call that 'real mean.'"

"I suppose it's all right," said Lord Lambeth. "I want to see those
pretty girls at Newport. You know, he told us the place was an island;
and aren't all islands in the sea?"

"Well," resumed the elder traveler after a while, "if his house is as
good as his cigars, we shall do very well."

"He seems a very good fellow," said Lord Lambeth, as if this idea had
just occurred to him.

"I say, we had better remain at the inn," rejoined his companion
presently. "I don't think I like the way he spoke of his house. I don't
like stopping in the house with such a tremendous lot of women."

"Oh, I don't mind," said Lord Lambeth. And then they smoked a while in
silence. "Fancy his thinking we do no work in England!" the young man
resumed.

"I daresay he didn't really think so," said Percy Beaumont.

"Well, I guess they don't know much about England over here!" declared
Lord Lambeth humorously. And then there was another long pause. "He was
devilish civil," observed the young nobleman.

"Nothing, certainly, could have been more civil," rejoined his
companion.

"Littledale said his wife was great fun," said Lord Lambeth.

"Whose wife--Littledale's?"

"This American's--Mrs. Westgate. What's his name? J.L."

Beaumont was silent a moment. "What was fun to Littledale," he said at
last, rather sententiously, "may be death to us."

"What do you mean by that?" asked his kinsman. "I am as good a man as
Littledale."

"My dear boy, I hope you won't begin to flirt," said Percy Beaumont.

"I don't care. I daresay I shan't begin."

"With a married woman, if she's bent upon it, it's all very well,"
Beaumont expounded. "But our friend mentioned a young lady--a sister, a
sister-in-law. For God's sake, don't get entangled with her!"

"How do you mean entangled?"