y fish.' 'You make a mistake,' he said, and we both laughed
in spite of ourselves, while he murmured, 'eating potato WITH fish--how
extraordinary.' Well, the bridge man may not add perceptibly to the
gaiety of the nations, but he is better than the Reverend Ronald. I
forgot to say that when I chanced to be speaking of doughnuts, that
'unconquer'd Scot' asked me if a doughnut resembled a peanut? Can you
conceive such ignorance?"

"I think you were not only aggressively American, but painfully
provincial," said Salemina, with some warmth. "Why in the world should
you drag doughnuts into a dinner-table conversation in Edinburgh? Why
not select topics of universal interest?"

"Like the Currie Brig or the shade of Montrose," I murmured slyly.

"To one who has ever eaten a doughnut, the subject is of transcendent
interest; and as for one who has not--well, he should be made to feel
his limitations," replied Francesca, with a yawn. "Come, let us forget
our troubles in sleep; it is after midnight."

About half an hour later she came to my bedside, her dark hair hanging
over her white gown, her eyes still bright.

"Penelope," she said softly, "I did not dare tell Salemina, and I should
not confess it to you save that I am afraid Lady Baird will complain of
me; but I was dreadfully rude to the Reverend Ronald! I couldn't help
it; he roused my worst passions. It all began with his saying he
thought international marriages presented even more difficulties to the
imagination than the other kind. I hadn't said anything about marriages
nor thought anything about marriages of any sort, but I told him
INSTANTLY I considered that every international marriage involved
two national suicides. He said that he shouldn't have put it quite so
forcibly, but that he hadn't given much thought to the subject. I said
that I had, and I thought we had gone on long enough filling the coffers
of the British nobility with American gold."

"FRANCES!" I interrupted. "Don't tell me that you made that vulgar,
cheap newspaper assertion!"

"I did," she replied stoutly, "and at the moment I only wished I could
make it stronger. If there had been anything cheaper or more vulgar, I
should have said it, but of course there isn't. Then he remarked that
the British nobility merited and needed all the support it could get in
these hard times, and asked if we had not cherished some intention in
the States, lately, of bestowing it in greenbacks instead of gold!