"He is never _mentioned_!" she warned briefly, and I felt constrained to wish that the same punishment could be applied to America's ancient sinners.

"Oh, so bad as that?"

She leaned closer.

"My dear Miss Christie, it would be impossible--quite impossible--to enumerate the peccadillos of that wretched old creature!"

"Yet you women are always ready to attempt the impossible!" her husband interposed, after his noisy attempt at lighting a cigarette had failed to drown out our voices.

She looked up at him.

"Herbert, I don't understand you, I'm sure."

He laughed.

"Well, I don't understand you, either!" he replied. "For twenty years now I have noticed that when two or three women in our part of the country are gathered together the first thing they say to each other before the men have come into the room is that Lord Erskine's recent escapades are positively unmentionable--then they fly at each other's throats for the privilege of retailing them."

She continued to stare at him, steadily and with no especial unfriendliness in her gaze.

"And the men--over their wine?" she asked casually.

He squared his shoulders.

"That's a very different matter," he declared. "With us he is as honest and open a diversion as hunting! The first thing we say in greeting, if we meet a neighbor on the road is: 'What's the latest news from Lord Erskine?'"

Their eyes challenged each other humorously for another moment, when Hilda broke in.

"Don't you think we've given Miss Christie a fairly good idea that she mustn't expect to be invited down to Colmere Abbey--and that if she is invited, she mustn't go?" she inquired, with gentle sarcasm.

"But, before we get away from the subject--what of the Webb family?" I begged forlornly. "Is there no one living who might take an interest in the story of Lady Frances?"

I am sure my voice was as sad with disappointment as old Joe Jefferson's used to be when he'd plead: "Does _no one_ know Rip Van Winkle?"

"Lord Erskine's mother was a Webb," Mrs. Montgomery explained.

"The one fact which can be stated about the old gentleman which need not be blushed for," her husband added. "In truth, he has always been vastly proud of his lineage."

"About all that he's ever had to be proud of! His own performances in social and family life have been--well, what I have outlined to you. I happened to know details of some earlier happenings, and all I can say is that my own att.i.tude toward Lord Erskine is rather unchristian."

"But I believe Miss Christie was asking about the family history further back than the present lord," Hilda reminded them again, and her mother took the cue.

"Ah, yes! To be sure! It's the failing of later years, my dear, to wish to discuss one's own memories! But of course your interest lies in the traditions of the novelist."

"Her history has always held a peculiar interest for me," I replied, "first, naturally, on account of the connecting link--then on account of the--tragic complication----"

She nodded her head briskly.

"Yes--poor Lady Frances! She was not very happy, if the ancient reports be true."

"I judge not--from her letters."

"But her memory is held in great reverence by the educated people around in the country," she hastened to a.s.sure me. "And there is a lovely memorial tablet in the church--quite aside from the tomb! A literary club of London had it placed there!"

"And every birthday there are wreaths," Mr. Montgomery threw in, evidently hoping to make it up to me for the disheartening gossip of the present age; but my dreams were rapidly fading--and I saw my chances for having a bonfire on the library hearth at Colmere go up in something far more unsubstantial than smoke.

"Well, I'm sure we've told Miss Christie quite enough about our neighbors--for a first sitting," Hilda Montgomery broke in at this point, as she rose and made a reckless suggestion that we go out and walk a little while. "_I_ don't wish to spend the whole afternoon talking about a villainous old Englishman!" she confided, when we were well out of ear-shot. "One might spend the time talking about 'Americans--don't you know?'"

"Americans?"

"Yes--charming, handsome, young Americans! You remember the first thing I told you was that I loved Americans?"

"Yes--and your father and mother said they did, too--when you weren't listening."

She nodded her blond head, in energetic delight.

"They are trying to pretend that it will be a difficult matter to win their consent--but it won't."

We steered our course around a group of people who were disputing, in Wabash tones, over a game of shuffleboard.

"Consent?" I repeated.

"His name is John McAdoo Carpenter--and he lives at South Bend, Indiana--did you ever hear of the place? Did you ever hear of him?"

She caught me by the arm and we walked precipitately over to the railing--out of the sound of the Wabash tones.

"If I don't talk to somebody before that sun goes down I'll jump right over this railing," she explained. "Here's his picture!"

I took the small blue leather case and looked at the honest, rather distinguished face it held.

"But why should your parents disapprove of _him_?" I asked in such genuine surprise that she gave me a smile which sealed forever our friendship.

"They don't--really! It's just that they like to torment me because he happened not to be born in either New York or Kentucky. An Englishman's knowledge of America's excellence extends no further than that."

Night was coming on--and the sea looked pretty vast and unfriendly. It was the lonesome hour, when any feminine thing far away from home has to wax either confidential or tearful. Hilda was determined to be confidential, and I let her have her say. I went down, after a while, and dressed for dinner--listlessly and without heart, but when I went into the dining-room a little later and found my place at the table next the captain's, the geniality of the family atmosphere I found there was vastly cheering.

Mrs. Montgomery was a rather magnificent little gray-haired lady in gray satin and diamonds, and her husband had made the evolution from the chrysalis state into that of the b.u.t.terfly by donning his dress clothes and putting up a monocle in place of the comfortable reading gla.s.ses he had worn in the afternoon. Hilda was wholesome and sweet-looking but quite secondary to her parents, in a soft blue gown.

The subject under discussion when I arrived was evidently the points of superiority of one American locality over another and they took me into their confidence at once.

"I appeal to you, Miss Christie, as an American," Mr. Montgomery said, after the steward who had acted as my pilot was out of hearing.

"Shouldn't you think now--if you didn't know the difference--_shouldn't_ you think now that a 'South _Bender'_ was a species of acrobat?"

Then, try as hard as I might to keep all physical signs of my mental infirmity from cropping out in my log-book, the second evening out found an entry like this showing itself--written almost entirely without effort on my part--like "spirit writing":

"To-night the orchestra is playing _The Rosary_, and I had to get away from all those people in the lounge!

"I have come down here--away from it, as I thought, but, no!