rom my
leg down the tree-stem; it seemed a torrent of blood, and there was a
long, loose ribbon of flesh very sickening to see; and then I fainted
and fell out of the tree, bruising my arm and cheek badly and
dislocating my shoulder in the fall.... Some of the beaters saw me fall,
and brought Crosby in sufficient time to improvise a _torniquet_ and
save my life.

CHAPTER THE NINTH

THE SPIRIT OF THE NEW WORLD

Sec. 1

I met Rachel again in Germany through the devices of my cousin the
Fuerstin Letzlingen. I had finished seeing what I wanted to see in
Westphalia and I was preparing to go to the United States. There I
thought I should be able to complete and round off that large view of
the human process I had been developing in my mind. But my departure was
delayed by an attack of influenza that I picked up at a Socialist
Congress in Munich, and the dear Durchlaucht, hearing of this and having
her own views of my destiny, descended upon me while I was still in bed
there, made me get up and carried me off in her car, to take care of me
herself at her villa at Boppard, telling me nothing of any fellow-guests
I might encounter.

She had a villa upon the Rhine under a hill of vineyards, where she
devoted herself--she was a widow--to matchmaking and belated regrets for
the childlessness that necessitated a perpetual borrowing of material
for her pursuit. She had a motor-car, a steam-launch, several rowing
boats and canoes, a tennis-lawn, a rambling garden, a devious house and
a rapid mind, and in fact everything that was necessary for throwing
young people together. She made her surprise seem easy and natural, and
with returning health I found myself already back upon my old footing of
friendly intimacy with Rachel.

I found her a new and yet a familiar Rachel. She had grown up, she was
no longer a schoolgirl, crystalline clear with gleams of emotion and
understanding, and what she had lost in transparency she had gained in
depth. And she had become well-informed, she had been reading very
widely and well, I could see, and not simply reading but talking and
listening and thinking. She showed a vivid interest in the current of
home politics,--at that time the last government of Mr. Balfour was
ebbing to its end and my old Transvaal friends, the Chinese coolies,
were to avenge themselves on their importers. The Tariff Reformers my
father detested were still struggling to unseat the Premier from his
leadership of