Mr. von Inwald was noble--somebody said that the "von" was a sort of
title. The women were planning to make the evenings more cheerful, too.
They couldn't have a dance with the men using canes or forbidden to
exercise, but Miss Cobb had a lot of what she called "parlor games" that
she wanted to try out. "Introducing the Jones family" was one of them.

In the afternoon Mr. von Inwald came out to the spring-house and sat
around, very affable and friendly, drinking the water. He and the bishop
grew quite chummy. Miss Patty was not there, but about four o'clock Mr.
Pierce came out. He did not sit down, but wandered around the room, not
talking to anybody, but staring, whenever he could, at the prince. Once
I caught Mr. von Inwald's eyes fixed on him, as if he might have seen
him before. After a while Mr. Pierce sat down in a corner like a sulky
child and filled his pipe, and as nobody noticed him except to complain
about the pipe, which he didn't even hear, he sat there for a half-hour,
bent forward, with his pipe clenched in his teeth, and never took his
eyes off Mr. von Inwald's face.

Senator Biggs was the one who really caused the trouble. He spent a good
deal of time in the spring-house trying to fool his stomach by keeping
it filled up all the time with water. He had got past the cranky stage,
being too weak for it; his face was folded up in wrinkles like an
accordion and his double chin was so flabby you could have tucked it
away inside his collar.

"What do you think of American women, Mr. von Inwald?" he asked, and
everybody stopped playing cards and listened for the answer. As Mr.
von Inwald represented the prince, wouldn't he be likely to voice the
prince's opinion of American women?

It's my belief Mr. von Inwald was going to say something nice. He
smiled as if he meant to, but just then he saw Mr. Pierce in his corner
sneering behind his pipe. They looked at each other steadily, and nobody
could mistake the hate in Mr. Pierce's face or his sneer. After a minute
the prince looked away and shrugged his shoulders, but he didn't make
his pretty speech.

"American women!" he said, turning his glass of spring water around
on the table before him, "they are very lovely, of course." He looked
around and there were Mrs. Moody and Mrs. Biggs and Miss Cobb, and he
even glanced at me in the spring. Then he looked again at Mr. Pierce and
kept his eyes there. "But they are spoiled, fearfully spoiled. They rule
their pa