heard him make the remark I
have just recorded.

Mr. Westgate all this time had not, as they said at Newport, "come on."
His wife more than once announced that she expected him on the morrow;
but on the morrow she wandered about a little, with a telegram in
her jeweled fingers, declaring it was very tiresome that his business
detained him in New York; that he could only hope the Englishmen were
having a good time. "I must say," said Mrs. Westgate, "that it is
no thanks to him if you are." And she went on to explain, while she
continued that slow-paced promenade which enabled her well-adjusted
skirts to display themselves so advantageously, that unfortunately in
America there was no leisure class. It was Lord Lambeth's theory, freely
propounded when the young men were together, that Percy Beaumont was
having a very good time with Mrs. Westgate, and that, under the pretext
of meeting for the purpose of animated discussion, they were indulging
in practices that imparted a shade of hypocrisy to the lady's regret for
her husband's absence.

"I assure you we are always discussing and differing," said Percy
Beaumont. "She is awfully argumentative. American ladies certainly don't
mind contradicting you. Upon my word I don't think I was ever treated so
by a woman before. She's so devilish positive."

Mrs. Westgate's positive quality, however, evidently had its
attractions, for Beaumont was constantly at his hostess's side. He
detached himself one day to the extent of going to New York to talk
over the Tennessee Central with Mr. Westgate; but he was absent only
forty-eight hours, during which, with Mr. Westgate's assistance, he
completely settled this piece of business. "They certainly do things
quickly in New York," he observed to his cousin; and he added that
Mr. Westgate had seemed very uneasy lest his wife should miss her
visitor--he had been in such an awful hurry to send him back to her.
"I'm afraid you'll never come up to an American husband, if that's what
the wives expect," he said to Lord Lambeth.

Mrs. Westgate, however, was not to enjoy much longer the entertainment
with which an indulgent husband had desired to keep her provided. On
the 21st of August Lord Lambeth received a telegram from his mother,
requesting him to return immediately to England; his father had been
taken ill, and it was his filial duty to come to him.

The young Englishman was visibly annoyed. "What the deuce does it mean?"
he asked of his k