he replied, "I take to be a Washington department-clerk, or
perhaps a member of Congress from Iowa, with a wife and wife's sister.
Do they shock your nobility?"

He looked at her with comical resignation. "You mean to tell me
that they are quite as good as dowager-countesses. I grant it. My
aristocratic spirit is broken, Mrs. Lee. I will even ask them to dinner
if you bid me, and if you will come to meet them. But the last time I
asked a member of Congress to dine, he sent me back a note in pencil on
my own envelope that he would bring two of his friends with him, very
respectable constituents from Yahoo city, or some such place; nature's
noblemen, he said."

"You should have welcomed them."

"I did. I wanted to see two of nature's noblemen, and I knew they would
probably be pleasanter company than their representative. They came;
very respectable persons, one with a blue necktie, the other with a red
one: both had diamond pins in their shirts, and were carefully brushed
in respect to their hair. They said nothing, ate little, drank less,
and were much better behaved than I am. When they went away, they
unanimously asked me to stay with them when I visited Yahoo city."

"You will not want guests if you always do that."

"I don't know. I think it was pure ignorance on their part. They knew
no better, and they seemed modest enough. My only complaint was that I
could get nothing out of them. I wonder whether their wives would have
been more amusing."

"Would they be so in England, Lord Skye?"

He looked down at her with half-shut eyes, and drawled: "You know my
countrywomen?"

"Hardly at all."

"Then let us discuss some less serious subject."

"Willingly. I have waited for you to explain to me why you have to-night
an expression of such melancholy."

"Is that quite friendly, Mrs. Lee? Do I really look melancholy?"

"Unutterably, as I feel. I am consumed with curiosity to know the
reason."

The British minister coolly took a complete survey of the whole room,
ending with a prolonged stare at the President and his wife, who were
still mechanically shaking hands; then he looked back into her face, and
said never a word.

She insisted: "I must have this riddle answered. It suffocates me. I
should not be sad at seeing these same people at work or at play, if
they ever do play; or in a church or a lecture-room. Why do they weigh
on me like a horrid phantom here?"

"I see no riddle, Mrs. Lee. You have answered