There is a
popular notion that Americans had better marry at home."

"Then the best way for a foreigner to break your exclusiveness is to be
naturalized." Mr. Lyon tried to adopt her tone, and added, "Would you
like to see me an American citizen?"

"I don't believe you could be, except for a little while; you are too
British."

"But the two nations are practically the same; that is, individuals of
the nations are. Don't you think so?"

"Yes, if one of them gives up all the habits and prejudices of a lifetime
and of a whole social condition to the other."

"And which would have to yield?"

"Oh, the man, of course. It has always been so. My
great-great-grandfather was a Frenchman, but he became, I have always
heard, the most docile American republican."

"Do you think he would have been the one to give in if they had gone to
France?"

"Perhaps not. And then the marriage would have been unhappy. Did you
never take notice that a woman's happiness, and consequently the
happiness of marriage, depends upon a woman's having her own way in all
social matters? Before our war all the men who married down South took
the Southern view, and all the Southern women who married up North held
their own, and sensibly controlled the sympathies of their husbands."

"And how was it with the Northern women who married South, as you say?"

"Well, it must be confessed that a good many of them adapted themselves,
in appearance at least. Women can do that, and never let anyone see they
are not happy and not doing it from choice."

"And don't you think American women adapt themselves happily to English
life?"

"Doubtless some; I doubt if many do; but women do not confess mistakes of
that kind. Woman's happiness depends so much upon the continuation of the
surroundings and sympathies in which she is bred. There are always
exceptions. Do you know, Mr. Lyon, it seems to me that some people do not
belong in the country where they were born. We have men who ought to have
been born in England, and who only find themselves really they go there.
There are who are ambitious, and court a career different from any that a
republic can give them. They are not satisfied here. Whether they are
happy there I do not know; so few trees, when at all grown, will bear
transplanting."

"Then you think international marriages are a mistake?"

"Oh, I don't theorize on subjects I am ignorant of."

"You give me very cold comfort."

"I didn't know," sai