and carpeted with canvas strips to protect
the floors. Through mullioned windows we caught glimpses of gardens and
geometrical parterres, lakes, fountains, statuary, fantastic topiary
and distant stretches of park. Maude sighed with admiration, but did not
covet. She had me. But I was often uncomfortable, resenting the vulgar,
gaping tourists with whom we were herded and the easy familiarity of
the guides. These did not trouble Maude, who often annoyed me by asking
naive questions herself. I would nudge her.

One afternoon when, with other compatriots, we were being hurried
through a famous castle, the guide unwittingly ushered us into a
drawing-room where the owner and several guests were seated about a
tea-table. I shall never forget the stares they gave us before we had
time precipitately to retreat, nor the feeling of disgust and rebellion
that came over me. This was heightened by the remark of a heavy,
six-foot Ohioan with an infantile face and a genial manner.

"I notice that they didn't invite us to sit down and have a bite," he
said. "I call that kind of inhospitable."

"It was 'is lordship himself!" exclaimed the guide, scandalized.

"You don't say!" drawled our fellow-countryman. "I guess I owe you
another shilling, my friend."

The guide, utterly bewildered, accepted it. The transatlantic point of
view towards the nobility was beyond him.

"His lordship could make a nice little income if he set up as a side
show," added the Ohioan.

Maude giggled, but I was furious. And no sooner were we outside the
gates than I declared I should never again enter a private residence by
the back door.

"Why, Hugh, how queer you are sometimes," she said.

"I maybe queer, but I have a sense of fitness," I retorted.

She asserted herself.

"I can't see what difference it makes. They didn't know us. And if they
admit people for money--"

"I can't help it. And as for the man from Ohio--"

"But he was so funny!" she interrupted. "And he was really very nice."

I was silent. Her point of view, eminently sensible as it was,
exasperated me. We were leaning over the parapet of a little-stone
bridge. Her face was turned away from me, but presently I realized that
she was crying. Men and women, villagers, passing across the bridge,
looked at us curiously. I was miserable, and somewhat appalled;
resentful, yet striving to be gentle and conciliatory. I assured her
that she was talking nonsense, that I loved her. But I did