d to Biskra, at sixty miles
an hour. Come right down to the Cape if you like. That will be a
Declaration of Independence with a vengeance. You can write a book about
it afterwards. That will finish your mother and make a woman of you.

ANN. [thoughtfully] I don't think there would be any harm in that, Jack.
You are my guardian: you stand in my father's place, by his own wish.
Nobody could say a word against our travelling together. It would be
delightful: thank you a thousand times, Jack. I'll come.

TANNER. [aghast] You'll come!!!

ANN. Of course.

TANNER. But-- [he stops, utterly appalled; then resumes feebly] No: look
here, Ann: if there's no harm in it there's no point in doing it.

ANN. How absurd you are! You don't want to compromise me, do you?

TANNER. Yes: that's the whole sense of my proposal.

ANN. You are talking the greatest nonsense; and you know it. You would
never do anything to hurt me.

TANNER. Well, if you don't want to be compromised, don't come.

ANN. [with simple earnestness] Yes, I will come, Jack, since you wish
it. You are my guardian; and think we ought to see more of one another
and come to know one another better. [Gratefully] It's very thoughtful
and very kind of you, Jack, to offer me this lovely holiday, especially
after what I said about Rhoda. You really are good--much better than you
think. When do we start?

TANNER. But--

The conversation is interrupted by the arrival of Mrs Whitefield from
the house. She is accompanied by the American gentleman, and followed by
Ramsden and Octavius.

Hector Malone is an Eastern American; but he is not at all ashamed of
his nationality. This makes English people of fashion think well of
him, as of a young fellow who is manly enough to confess to an obvious
disadvantage without any attempt to conceal or extenuate it. They feel
that he ought not to be made to suffer for what is clearly not his
fault, and make a point of being specially kind to him. His chivalrous
manners to women, and his elevated moral sentiments, being both
gratuitous and unusual, strike them as being a little unfortunate;
and though they find his vein of easy humor rather amusing when it has
ceased to puzzle them (as it does at first), they have had to make
him understand that he really must not tell anecdotes unless they
are strictly personal and scandalous, and also that oratory is an
accomplishment which belongs to a cruder stage of civilization than that
in which h