第82章

Maude,I knew,loved the cottages best.She said they were more "homelike."But she yielded to my liking for grandeur.

"My,I should feel lost in a palace like that!"she cried,as we gazed at the Marquis of So-and-So's country-seat.

"Well,of course we should have to modify it,"I admitted."Perhaps--perhaps our family will be larger."She put her hand on my lips,and blushed a fiery red....

We examined,with other tourists,at a shilling apiece historic mansions with endless drawing-rooms,halls,libraries,galleries filled with family portraits;elaborate,formal bedrooms where famous sovereigns had slept,all roped off and carpeted with canvas strips to protect the floors.Through mullioned windows we caught glimpses of gardens and geometrical parterres,lakes,fountains,statuary,fantastic topiary and distant stretches of park.Maude sighed with admiration,but did not covet.She had me.But I was often uncomfortable,resenting the vulgar,gaping tourists with whom we were herded and the easy familiarity of the guides.These did not trouble Maude,who often annoyed me by asking naive questions herself.I would nudge her.

One afternoon when,with other compatriots,we were being hurried through a famous castle,the guide unwittingly ushered us into a drawing-room where the owner and several guests were seated about a tea-table.Ishall never forget the stares they gave us before we had time precipitately to retreat,nor the feeling of disgust and rebellion that came over me.This was heightened by the remark of a heavy,six-foot Ohioan with an infantile face and a genial manner.

"I notice that they didn't invite us to sit down and have a bite,"he said."I call that kind of inhospitable.""It was 'is lordship himself!"exclaimed the guide,scandalized.

"You don't say!"drawled our fellow-countryman."I guess I owe you another shilling,my friend."The guide,utterly bewildered,accepted it.The transatlantic point of view towards the nobility was beyond him.

"His lordship could make a nice little income if he set up as a side show,"added the Ohioan.

Maude giggled,but I was furious.And no sooner were we outside the gates than I declared I should never again enter a private residence by the back door.

"Why,Hugh,how queer you are sometimes,"she said.

"I maybe queer,but I have a sense of fitness,"I retorted.

She asserted herself.

"I can't see what difference it makes.They didn't know us.And if they admit people for money--""I can't help it.And as for the man from Ohio--""But he was so funny!"she interrupted."And he was really very nice."I was silent.Her point of view,eminently sensible as it was,exasperated me.We were leaning over the parapet of a little-stone bridge.Her face was turned away from me,but presently I realized that she was crying.Men and women,villagers,passing across the bridge,looked at us curiously.I was miserable,and somewhat appalled;resentful,yet striving to be gentle and conciliatory.I assured her that she was talking nonsense,that I loved her.But I did not really love her at that moment;nor did she relent as easily as usual.It was not until we were together in our sitting-room,a few hours later,that she gave in.I felt a tremendous sense of relief.

"Hugh,I'll try to be what you want.You know I am trying.But don't kill what is natural in me."I was touched by the appeal,and repentant...

It is impossible to say when the little worries,annoyances and disagreements began,when I first felt a restlessness creeping over me.

I tried to hide these moods from her,but always she divined them.And yet I was sure that I loved Maude;in a surprisingly short period I had become accustomed to her,dependent on her ministrations and the normal,cosy intimacy of our companionship.I did not like to think that the keen edge of the enjoyment of possession was wearing a little,while at the same time I philosophized that the divine fire,when legalized,settles down to a comfortable glow.The desire to go home that grew upon me I attributed to the irritation aroused by the spectacle of a fixed social order commanding such unquestioned deference from the many who were content to remain resignedly outside of it.Before the setting in of the Liberal movement and the "American invasion"England was a country in which (from my point of view)one must be "somebody"in order to be happy.I was "somebody"at home;or at least rapidly becoming so....

London was shrouded,parliament had risen,and the great houses were closed.Day after day we issued forth from a musty and highly respectable hotel near Piccadilly to a gloomy Tower,a soggy Hampton Court or a mournful British Museum.Our native longing for luxury--or rather my native longing--impelled me to abandon Smith's Hotel for a huge hostelry where our suite overlooked the Thames,where we ran across a man I had known slightly at Harvard,and other Americans with whom we made excursions and dined and went to the theatre.Maude liked these persons;I did not find them especially congenial.My life-long habit of unwillingness to accept what life sent in its ordinary course was asserting itself;but Maude took her friends as she found them,and I was secretly annoyed by her lack of discrimination.In addition to this,the sense of having been pulled up by the roots grew upon me.

"Suppose,"Maude surprised me by suggesting one morning as we sat at breakfast watching the river craft flit like phantoms through the yellow-green fog--"suppose we don't go to France,after all,Hugh?""Not go to France!"I exclaimed."Are you tired of the trip?""Oh,Hugh!"Her voice caught."I could go on,always,if you were content.""And--what makes you think that I'm not content?"Her smile had in it just a touch of wistfulness.