Part 26 (2/2)
he said.
”But they are so sad.”
”They are,” he agreed; ”but my countrymen sink to their greatest melancholy when they travel.”
”But why, monsieur?”
”That,” he said, ”I cannot tell you. Perhaps traveling on a train reminds them of the brief journey of life itself. At any rate, all really well-bred people who travel resent others doing the same thing.”
”What are well-bred people?”
He gazed at an advertis.e.m.e.nt for pyjamas.
”Well-bred people,” he said sententiously, ”are those who base their superiority on such intangible things that they leave nothing on which one can contest it. Do you understand me?”
”No,” said Pippa frankly; ”but I like your voice.”
”Thank you, little one. It was one of the first things I learned at Harrow--to say something well rather than something worth hearing.”
”I wonder if Louis had his breakfast,” said she, at a tangent.
”I think so,” he said, with a man's vagueness towards domestic economy; ”but, to finish my definition of well-bred people----”
”Louis will be angry at my leaving him,” she said musingly.
”Pippa, you must listen to me,” he said gravely.
”But may I not talk as well?”
”Really charming women only listen.”
”_Tiens!_ What a droll country! Do these people understand what we say?”
”I don't think so, youngster. Most Britishers look on foreign languages as immoral.”
The fierce gentleman, who had been growing bluer with cold every minute, suddenly endeavored to suppress a sneeze by smothering his face in a large handkerchief, with the result that he produced a combustive cohesion of sounds, which caused a gurgle of delight from the miller's niece. Violently blowing his nose, the irate one resumed his newspaper, first turning his coat-collar about his ears as the bracing April air blew full against him, and looking as genuinely bad-tempered as his somewhat immobile features would permit.
”But he is amusing, is he not?” cried the little French girl, then shrank back as the New Statesmanist fixed her with a look of ineffable and disapproving intellectuality. ”Monsieur, why is it she looks at me so?”
The aviator transferred his scrutiny from pyjamas to a picture of Canterbury Cathedral.
”She is the New Woman,” he said; ”and all New Women resent the Old.”
”I am old?--but no!”
He lowered his eyes from the cathedral to her happy, flushed face.
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