u mean that I
don't see or know England till I've lived there."

"Quite so, Mr. Vandewaters." She smiled to think what an undistinguished
name it was. It suggested pumpkins in the front garden. Yet here its
owner was perfectly at his ease, watching the scene before him
with good-natured superiority. "London is English; but it is very
cosmopolitan, you know," she added; "and I fancy you can see it is not a
place for fast trotters. The Park would be too crowded for that--even if
one wished to drive a Maud S."

He turned his slow keen eyes on her, and a smile broadened into a low
laugh, out of which he said:

"What do you know of Maud S? I didn't think you would be up in racing
matters."

"You forget that my husband is a traveller, and an admirer of Americans
and things American."

"That's so," he answered; "and a staving good traveller he is. You don't
catch him asleep, I can tell you, Lady Lawless. He has stuff in him."

"The stuff to make a good American?"

"Yes; with something over. He's the kind of Englishman that can keep
cool when things are ticklish, and look as if he was in a parlour all
the time. Americans keep cool, but look cheeky. O, I know that. We
square our shoulders and turn out our toes, and push our hands into
our pockets, and act as if we owned the world. Hello--by Jingo!" Then,
apologetically: "I beg your pardon, Lady Lawless; it slipped."

Lady Lawless followed Mr. Vandewaters's glance, and saw, passing on
her husband's arm, a tall, fascinating girl. She smiled meaningly to
herself, as she sent a quick quizzical look at the American, and said,
purposely misinterpreting his exclamation: "I am not envious, Mr.
Vandewaters."

"Of course not. That's a commoner thing with us than with you. American
girls get more notice and attention from their cradles up, and they
want it all along the line. You see, we've mostly got the idea that an
Englishman expects from his wife what an American woman expects from her
husband."

"How do Americans get these impressions about us?"

"From our newspapers, I guess; and the newspapers take as the
ground-work of their belief the Bow Street cases where Englishmen are
cornered for beating their wives."

"Suppose we were to judge of American Society by the cases in a Chicago
Divorce Court?"

"There you have me on toast. That's what comes of having a husband who
takes American papers. Mind you, I haven't any idea that the American
papers are right. I've had a l