The Press., 1895-08-08

Seems to be way they have here in St. Kentigern. He paused and then add ed, ''Staid there to a kind of high tea "
 "Indeed !'' said the consul
 "Why not? The old man wanted to return my hospitality and square the account. He wasn't going to lie under any obligation to a stranger, and, by Jove! he made it Q special point of hon. or. A Spanish grandee couldn't have been more punctilious. And with an accent, Jerusalem like northeaster off the Banks But the feed was in good taste, and he only a mathematical in- strument maker on about $1 200 year. ;
 "You seem to know all about him., " said the consul smiIingly.
 "Not so much as he does about me-" returned Grey, with a half perplexed face, "for he saw enough to admonish me about my eXtravagance and even to intimate that that rascal SaundersOn, my steward, was imposing on me. She took me to task, too, for not laying the yacht up on Sunday that the men could go to kirk and for swearing at a bargeman who ran across our bows. It's their perfect simplicity and sincerity i'll all this that gets me. You'd have thought that the old man was my guard ian and the daughter my aunt. " After a pause he uttered reminiscent laugh "She thought we ate and drank too much on tho yacht and wondered what we could find to do all day. All this, you know, in the gentlest, caressing sort of voice, as if she was really con cerned, like ones own sister. We'll, not exactly like mine," he interrupted him self grimly ;"but, hang it all, you know what I mean. You know that our girls over there haven't got that trick of voice-too much self assertion, reck on; things made too easy for them by us men. Habit of race, dare say" He laughed @ little. "Why, 1 mislaid my glove when was coming away, and it was as good as play to hear her com- miserating and sympathizing and hunt ing for it as if I were a lost baby"
 ''But you've seen Scotch girls before this," said the consul ''There were Lady Glairn's daughters, whom you took on cruise. ;
 ''Yes, but the swell Scotch all imi- tate the English, as everybody else does, for the matter of that, our girls included, and they re all alike Society makes lem fit ill together like tongued and grooved blanks that will take any amount of holystoning and polish. It's like dropping into a dead calm, with every rope and spar that you know al ready reflected back from tke smooth water upon you. It's mighty pretty, but it isn't getting on, you knOw.' After 8 pause he added, ''I asked then to take little holiday cruise with me. ,
 "And they declined?" said the con- sul
 Grey glanced at him quickly.
 "Well, yes; that s all right enough. They don't know me, you see, but they do know you, and the fact is I was thinking that, as you're our consul here, don't you see, and sort of responsible for me, you might say that it was all right, you know. Quite the customary thing with us over there. And you might say generally who I am. .'
 ''I see, said the consul deliberately. ''Tell them your Bob Grey, with more money and time than you know what to do with; that you have a fine taste for |. yachting and shooting and racing and amusing yourself generally; that you find that they amuse you, and you would like your luxury and your dollars to stand as an equivalent to their independ- ence and originality; that, being 8 good republican yourself and recogniz- ing no distinction of class, you don't care what this may mean to them, who are brought up differently; that after their cruise with you you don't care what life, what friends or what jeal- ousies they return to; that you know no ties, no responsibilities beyond the pres ent, and that you are not a marrying man"
 "Look here, say, aren't you making little too much of this?" said Grey stifay.
 The consul laughed ''I should be glad to know that I am."
 Grey rose. "Wc'll be dropping down the river tomorrow" he said, with 8 return of his usual ightness, "and reckon I'll be toddling down to the wharf. GoQdby, if I don't see you again.
 He passed out. As the consul glanced from the window he observed, however, that LIr. Grey was ''toddling" ill quite another direction than tho wharf. For an instant he half regretted that he had not suggested, in some discreet way, the conclusion he had arrived at after witnessing the girl s parting with the middle aged passenger the day before. But he reflected that this was some thing he had only accidentally overseen and was the girls own secret.