, there is something in that sort of noisy welcome
that puts me to the bad at the start. It always does. A group of
strangers all laughing together, and with a set of catchwords and jokes
all their own, always throws me into a fit of sadness, deeper than
words. I had thought, when Mrs. Beverly-Jones said a _small_ party,
she really meant small. I had had a mental picture of a few sad people,
greeting me very quietly and gently, and of myself, quiet, too, but
cheerful--somehow lifting them up, with no great effort, by my mere
presence.

Somehow from the very first I could feel that Beverly-Jones was
disappointed in me. He said nothing. But I knew it. On that first
afternoon, between my arrival and dinner, he took me about his place, to
show it to me. I wish that at some proper time I had learned just what
it is that you say when a man shows you about his place. I never
knew before how deficient I am in it. I am all right to be shown an
iron-and-steel plant, or a soda-water factory, or anything really
wonderful, but being shown a house and grounds and trees, things that I
have seen all my life, leaves me absolutely silent.

"These big gates," said Beverly-Jones, "we only put up this year."

"Oh," I said. That was all. Why shouldn't they put them up this year? I
didn't care if they'd put them up this year or a thousand years ago.

"We had quite a struggle," he continued, "before we finally decided on
sandstone.

"You did, eh?" I said. There seemed nothing more to say; I didn't
know what sort of struggle he meant, or who fought who; and personally
sandstone or soapstone or any other stone is all the same to me.

"This lawn," said Beverly-Jones, "we laid down the first year we were
here." I answered nothing. He looked me right in the face as he said it
and I looked straight back at him, but I saw no reason to challenge his
statement. "The geraniums along the border," he went on, "are rather an
experiment. They're Dutch."

I looked fixedly at the geraniums but never said a word. They were
Dutch; all right, why not? They were an experiment. Very good; let them
be so. I know nothing in particular to say about a Dutch experiment.

I could feel that Beverly-Jones grew depressed as he showed me round.
I was sorry for him, but unable to help. I realized that there were
certain sections of my education that had been neglected. How to be
shown things and make appropriate comments seems to be an art in itself.
I don't possess