As this party had entered, “God save the Queen” had been played, and, in rising with the audience during the entry, he had recalled that the tune was identical with that of an American national air.  How unconsciously inseparable—­in spite of the lightness with which they regarded the curious tie between them—­the two countries were.  The people upon the stage were acting as if they knew their public, their bearing suggesting no sense of any barrier beyond the footlights.  It was the unconsciousness and lightness of the mutual attitude which had struck him of late.  Punch had long jested about “Fair Americans,” who, in their first introduction to its pages, used exotic and cryptic language, beginning every sentence either with “I guess,” or “Say, Stranger”; its male American had been of the Uncle Sam order and had invariably worn a “goatee.”  American witticisms had represented the Englishman in plaid trousers, opening his remarks with “Chawley, deah fellah,” and unfailingly missing the point of any joke.  Each country had cherished its type and good-naturedly derided it.  In time this had modified itself and the joke had changed in kind.  Many other things had changed, but the lightness of treatment still remained.  And yet their blood was mingling itself with that of England’s noblest and oldest of name, their wealth was making solid again towers and halls which had threatened to crumble.  Ancient family jewels glittered on slender, young American necks, and above—­sometimes somewhat careless—­young American brows.  And yet, so far, one was casual in one’s thought of it all, still.  On his own part he was obstinate Briton enough to rebel against and resent it.  They were intruders.  He resented them as he had resented in his boyhood the historical fact that, after all, an Englishman was a German—­a savage who, five hundred years after the birth of Christ, had swooped upon Early Briton from his Engleland and Jutland, and ravaging with fire and sword, had conquered and made the land his possession, ravishing its very name from it and giving it his own.  These people did not come with fire and sword, but with cable and telephone, and bribes of gold and fair women, but they were encroaching like the sea, which, in certain parts of the coast, gained a few inches or so each year.  He shook his shoulders impatiently, and stiffened, feeling illogically antagonistic towards the good-natured, lantern-jawed man at his side.

The lantern-jawed man looked good-natured because he was smiling, and he was smiling because he saw something which pleased him in one of the boxes.

His expression of unqualified approval naturally directed Mount Dunstan’s eye to the point in question, where it remained for some moments.  This was because he found it resting upon Miss Vanderpoel, who sat before him in luminous white garments, and with a brilliant spark of ornament in the dense shadow of her hair.  His sensation at the unexpected sight of her would, if it had expressed itself physically, have taken the form of a slight start.  The luminous quality did not confine itself to the whiteness of her garments.  He was aware of feeling that she looked luminous herself—­her eyes, her cheek, the smile she bent upon the little woman who was her companion.  She was a beautifully living thing.