It was not quite pleasant, for instance, to hear him speak of Americans in the frank and unconstrained manner which he adopted when talking to us.  We could hardly wonder at it when we looked at the promiscuous crowd which formed his idea of American society.  Refined and well-bred people there certainly were, but these were precisely the ones who never forced themselves upon his notice, leaving him to be struck and stunned by fast and hoydenish young ladies, ungrammatical and ill-bred old ones, and men of all shades of boorishness and swagger, such as make themselves conspicuous in every crowd.  Unluckily, both Koenigin and I have English blood in our veins, and the Jook could not be convinced that we did not eagerly snatch at the chance thus presented of claiming the title of British subjects.  It is quite hopeless to attempt to convince Englishmen that any American would not be British if he could.  Pride in American citizenship is an idea utterly monstrous and inconceivable to them, and they can look on the profession of it in no other light than that of a laudable attempt at making the best of a bad case.  Therefore, the Jook persisted in ignoring our protestations of patriotic ardor, and in paying us the delicate compliment of considering us English and expressing his views on America with a beautiful frankness which kept us in a frame of mind verging on delirium.

What was to be done with such a man?  Clearly, but one thing, and I sighed for one of our American belles who should come and see and conquer this impracticable Englishman.  At present, things seemed quite hopeless.  There was no one within reach who would have the slightest chance of success in such an undertaking.  Though outsiders gave me the credit of his subjugation, I knew quite well that there not only was not, but never could be, the necessary tinge of sentimentality in our intercourse.  We were much too free and easy for that, and we laughed and talked, rambled and boated together, “like two babes in the woods,” as Koenigin was fond of remarking.

It was in Florida that all this took place—­in shabby, fascinating Jacksonville, where one meets everybody and does nothing in particular except lounge about and be happy.  So the Jook and I lounged and were happy with a placid, unexciting sort of happiness, until the day when Kitty Grey descended upon us with the suddenness of a meteor, and very like one in her bewildering brightness.

Kitty was by no means pretty, but, though women recognized this fact, the man who could be convinced of it remains yet to be discovered.  You might force them to confess that Kitty’s nose was flat, her eyes not well shaped, her teeth crooked, her mouth slightly awry, but it always came back to the same point:  “Curious that with all these defects she should still be so exquisitely pretty!”