HORACE.  Then as soon as the settlement is arranged.  It’ll take about all your share of the estate, sis, but it’s worth it—­a hundred and fifty thousand pounds.

ETHEL [earnestly].  What better use could be made of a fortune than to maintain the state and high condition of so ancient a house?

HORACE.  Doesn’t it seem impossible that we were born in Indiana!

[He speaks seriously, as if the thing were incredible.]

ETHEL [smiling].  But isn’t it good that the pater “made his pile,” as the Americans say, and let us come over here when we were young to find the nobler things, Hoddy—­the nobler things!

HORACE.  The nobler things—­the nobler things, sis.  When old Hawcastle dies I’ll be saying, quite off-hand, you know, “My sister, the Countess of Hawcastle—­”

ETHEL [thoughtfully].  You don’t suppose that father’s friend, my guardian, this old Mr. Pike, will be—­will be QUEER, do you?

HORACE.  Well, the governor himself was rather raw, you know.  This is probably a harmless enough old chap—­easy to handle—­

ETHEL.  I wish I knew.  I shouldn’t like Almeric’s family to think we had queer connections of any sort—­and he might turn out to be quite shockingly American [with genuine pathos].  I—­I couldn’t bear it, Hoddy.

HORACE.  Then keep him out of the way.  That’s simple enough.  None of them, except the solicitor, need see him.

[Instantly upon this there is a tremendous though distant commotion beyond the hotel—­wild laughter and cheers, the tarantella played by mandolins and guitars, also sung, shouts of “Bravo Americano!” and “Yanka Dooda!” The noise continues and increases gradually.]

ETHEL [as the uproar begins].  What is that?

HORACE.  Must be a mob.

[LADY CREECH, flustered and hot, enters from the hotel.  She is a haughty, cross-looking woman in the sixties.]

ETHEL [going to LADY CREECH, speaks close to her ear and loudly].  Lady
Creech—­dear Lady Creech—­what is the trouble?

LADY CREECH.  Some horrible people coming to this hotel!  They’ve made a riot in the village.

[The noise becomes suddenly louder.  MARIANO, immediately upon LADY CREECH’S entrance, appears in hotel doors, makes a quick gesture toward breakfast-table, and withdraws.]

[MICHELE, laughing, immediately enters by same doors, goes rapidly to the breakfast-table and clears it.  The others pay no attention to this.]

HORACE [at steps up left].  It’s not a riot—­it’s a revolution.

LADY CREECH [sinking into a chair, angrily].  One of your horrid fellow-countrymen, my dear.  Your Americans are really too—­

ETHEL [proudly].  Not my Americans, Lady Creech!

HORACE.  Not ours, you know.  One could hardly say that, could one?