“Some of them were stupid,” I repeated, “but they were nearly all nice.”  And I went on to say that what Chicago people as a whole thought about it I didn’t know and I didn’t care, but so far as my experience went the English were the loveliest nation in the world.

“A nation like a box of strawberries,” Mr. Page suggested, “all the big ones on top, all the little ones at the bottom.”

“That doesn’t matter to us,” I replied cheerfully, “we never get any further than the top.  And you’ll admit there’s a great tendency for little ones to shake down.  It’s only a question of time.  They’ve had so much time in England.  You see the effects of it everywhere.”

“Not at all.  By no means. Our little strawberries rise,” he declared.

“Do they?  Dear me, so they do!  I suppose the American law of gravity is different.  In England they would certainly smile at that.”

Arthur said nothing, but his whole bearing expressed a contempt for puns.

“Of course,” I said, “I mean the loveliest nation after Americans.”

I thought he might have taken that for granted.  Instead, he looked incredulous and smiled, in an observing, superior way.

“Why do you say ’ahfter’?” he asked.  His tone was sweetly acidulated.

“Why do you say ’affter’?” I replied simply.

“Because,” he answered with quite unnecessary emphasis, “in the part of the world I come from everybody says it.  Because my mother has brought me up to say it.”

“Oh,” I said, looking at the lamp, “they say it like that in other parts of the world too.  In Yorkshire—­and such places.  As far as mothers go, I must tell you that momma approves of my pronunciation.  She likes it better than anything else I have brought back with me—­even my tailor-mades—­and thinks it wonderful that I should have acquired it in the time.”

“Don’t you think you could remember a little of your good old American?  Doesn’t it seem to come back to you?”

All the Wicks hate sarcasm, especially from those they love, and I certainly had not outgrown my fondness for Mr. Page at this time.

“It all came back to me, my dear Arthur,” I said, “the moment you opened your lips!”

At that not only Mr. Page’s features and his shirt front, but his whole personality seemed to stiffen.  He sat up and made an outward movement on the seat of his chair which signified, “My hat and overcoat are in the hall, and if you do not at once retract——­”

“Rather than allow anything to issue from them which would imply that I was not an American I would keep them closed for ever,” he said.

“You needn’t worry about that,” I observed.  “Nothing ever will.  But I don’t know why we should glory in talking through our noses.”  Involuntarily I played with my engagement ring, slipping it up and down, as I spoke.

Arthur rose with an expression of tolerant amusement—­entirely forced—­and stood by the fireplace.  He stood beside it, with his elbow on the mantelpiece, not in front of it with his legs apart, and I thought with a pang how much more graceful the American attitude was.