but both mutually polite;
they got on at the French swimmingly: ordinary topics were discussed
with great state and decorum; I thought I had never seen two such models
of propriety, for Hunsden (thanks to the constraint of the foreign
tongue) was obliged to shape his phrases, and measure his sentences,
with a care that forbade any eccentricity. At last England was
mentioned, and Frances proceeded to ask questions. Animated by degrees,
she began to change, just as a grave night-sky changes at the approach
of sunrise: first it seemed as if her forehead cleared, then her eyes
glittered, her features relaxed, and became quite mobile; her subdued
complexion grew warm and transparent; to me, she now looked pretty;
before, she had only looked ladylike.

She had many things to say to the Englishman just fresh from his
island-country, and she urged him with an enthusiasm of curiosity, which
ere long thawed Hunsden's reserve as fire thaws a congealed viper. I use
this not very flattering comparison because he vividly reminded me of a
snake waking from torpor, as he erected his tall form, reared his head,
before a little declined, and putting back his hair from his broad Saxon
forehead, showed unshaded the gleam of almost savage satire which his
interlocutor's tone of eagerness and look of ardour had sufficed at
once to kindle in his soul and elicit from his eyes: he was himself;
as Frances was herself, and in none but his own language would he now
address her.

"You understand English?" was the prefatory question.

"A little."

"Well, then, you shall have plenty of it; and first, I see you've not
much more sense than some others of my acquaintance" (indicating me
with his thumb), "or else you'd never turn rabid about that dirty little
country called England; for rabid, I see you are; I read Anglophobia in
your looks, and hear it in your words. Why, mademoiselle, is it possible
that anybody with a grain of rationality should feel enthusiasm about a
mere name, and that name England? I thought you were a lady-abbess five
minutes ago, and respected you accordingly; and now I see you are a sort
of Swiss sibyl, with high Tory and high Church principles!"

"England is your country?" asked Frances.

"Yes."

"And you don't like it?"

"I'd be sorry to like it! A little corrupt, venal, lord-and-king-cursed
nation, full of mucky pride (as they say in----shire), and helpless
pauperism; rotten with abuses, worm-eaten with prejudices