Holt!" begged Honora.

The Vicomte, who had been acting very strangely during the meal, showed
unmistakable signs of a futile anger. He had asked Honora to walk with
him.

"Of course," added Mrs. Holt, "no one need listen who doesn't wish to.
Since you were good enough to reconsider your decision and attend divine
service, Howard, I suppose I should be satisfied."

The reading took place in the library. Through the open window Honora
perceived the form of Joshua asleep in the hammock, his Sunday coat all
twisted under him. It worried her to picture his attire when he should
wake up. Once Mrs. Robert looked in, smiled, said nothing, and went out
again. At length, in a wicker chair under a distant tree on the lawn,
Honora beheld the dejected outline of the Vicomte. He was trying
to read, but every once in a while would lay down his book and gaze
protractedly at the house, stroking his mustache. The low song of the
bees around the shrubbery vied with Mr. Holt's slow reading. On the
whole, the situation delighted Honora, who bit her lip to refrain from
smiling at M. de Toqueville. When at last she emerged from the library,
he rose precipitately and came towards her across the lawn, lifting his
hands towards the pitiless puritan skies.

"Enfin!" he exclaimed tragically. "Ah, Mademoiselle, never in my life
have I passed such a day!"

"Are you ill, Vicomte?" she asked.

"Ill! Were it not for you, I would be gone. You alone sustain me--it is
for the pleasure of seeing you that I suffer. What kind of a menage is
this, then, where I am walked around Institutions, where I am forced to
listen to the exposition of doctrines, where the coffee is weak, where
Sunday, which the bon Dieu set aside for a jour de fete resembles to a
day in purgatory?"

"But, Vicomte," Honora laughed, "you must remember that you are in
America, and that you have come here to study our manners and customs."

"Ah, no," he cried, "ah, no, it cannot all be like this! I will not
believe it. Mr. Holt, who sought to entertain me before luncheon,
offered to show me his collection of Chinese carvings! I, who might be
at Trouville or Cabourg! If it were not for you, Mademoiselle, I should
not stay here--not one little minute," he said, with a slow intensity.
"Behold what I suffer for your sake!"

"For my sake?" echoed Honora.

"For what else?" demanded the Vicomte, gazing upon her with the eyes of
martyrdom. "It is not for my health, alas! Between the cof