y, sending out
boys from little country villages--and of men like you, Dick, and it
makes one feel as if one couldn't bear _not_ to be English! Think of
the light burning over the House, Dick! When I stood on deck just now I
seemed to see it. It's what one means by London."

"It's the continuity," said Richard sententiously. A vision of English
history, King following King, Prime Minister Prime Minister, and Law Law
had come over him while his wife spoke. He ran his mind along the line
of conservative policy, which went steadily from Lord Salisbury to
Alfred, and gradually enclosed, as though it were a lasso that opened
and caught things, enormous chunks of the habitable globe.

"It's taken a long time, but we've pretty nearly done it," he said; "it
remains to consolidate."

"And these people don't see it!" Clarissa exclaimed.

"It takes all sorts to make a world," said her husband. "There would
never be a government if there weren't an opposition."

"Dick, you're better than I am," said Clarissa. "You see round, where I
only see _there_." She pressed a point on the back of his hand.

"That's my business, as I tried to explain at dinner."

"What I like about you, Dick," she continued, "is that you're always the
same, and I'm a creature of moods."

"You're a pretty creature, anyhow," he said, gazing at her with deeper
eyes.

"You think so, do you? Then kiss me."

He kissed her passionately, so that her half-written letter slid to the
ground. Picking it up, he read it without asking leave.

"Where's your pen?" he said; and added in his little masculine hand:

R.D. _loquitur_: Clarice has omitted to tell you that she looked
exceedingly pretty at dinner, and made a conquest by which she has bound
herself to learn the Greek alphabet. I will take this occasion of adding
that we are both enjoying ourselves in these outlandish parts, and only
wish for the presence of our friends (yourself and John, to wit) to make
the trip perfectly enjoyable as it promises to be instructive. . . .

Voices were heard at the end of the corridor. Mrs. Ambrose was speaking
low; William Pepper was remarking in his definite and rather acid voice,
"That is the type of lady with whom I find myself distinctly out of
sympathy. She--"

But neither Richard nor Clarissa profited by the verdict, for directly
it seemed likely that they would overhear, Richard crackled a sheet of
paper.

"I often wonder," Clarissa mused in bed, over the litt