en doing and what has been doing
to you. The General is so--so incomprehensible in his attitude
towards you and yours. All these years he has been"--and as she
spoke she looked up into my eyes and pressed slightly towards
me--"uncompromising, hasn't he?"

"Yes, Madam, I do find my Uncle, the General Robert, to be, as you
say, uncompromising," I answered as I looked down at her with a smile.
"But you are not like that, are you, beautiful Madam Whitworth? You
will compromise yourself, will you not?"

"Don't use English words so carelessly, my dear, until you are less
ignorant of their meaning," she reproved me as she sat erect and gave
to my lungs an inch more breathing space. I had heard that large lady
of the State of Cincinnati on the ship say that a nice lady from a
place called Kansas, and whom everyone gave the title of Mrs. Grass
because of a disagreeable husband who was not dead, "compromised"
herself with a very much drinking gentleman from Boston because she
sat in a small space with him behind the chimney for smoke from the
engine, and I thought it was a nice word to fit into the conversation
with Madam Whitworth at that time. And I think it did fit better than
I had quite intended that it should. I saw offense and I hastened to
make a peace so that I should learn all that I wanted to know from her
while letting her learn all that I did not know from me.

"I beg that you pardon me, beautiful Madam, and teach me the English
words to say that will express all of--of the most wonderful things
that I think of you. What is the one word that expresses the beauty of
the blue flowers in crystal that I said your eyes to be, to myself,
the first time I looked into them upon that railroad train when you
rescued me from the black taffeta lady?" And as I was at that moment
speaking the exact truth I spoke with a great ardor.

"I rather think that offsets Sue Tomlinson's 'cream jug'
compliment--and you _are_ a dear," she answered as she again
diminished the space for my lung action. "I hear the dear General has
turned you over to the Governor completely. What do you think of him?"
she asked as if to manufacture conversation.

"Yes, I was made a gift to him last week, and I do not think very much
of that Gouverneur," I made answer with excellent falseness, because I
had had no thoughts since my presentation to that Gouverneur Faulkner
that were not of him. I had obtained the uncomplimentary remark upon
the ship, from th