’Do you mean the English, or the French, or the world in general on this side of the Atlantic?’

‘We mean Europeans,’ said the younger lady, who was better after her breakfast.  ’But then we think that the French have something of compensation, in their manners, and their ways of life, their climate, the beauty of their cities, and their general management of things.’

‘They are very great in many ways, no doubt,’ said Mr Glascock.

‘They do understand living better than you do,’ said the elder.

‘Everything is so much brighter with them,’ said the younger.

‘They contrive to give a grace to every-day existence,’ said the elder.

‘There is such a welcome among them for strangers,’ said the younger.

‘Particularly in reference to places taken in the coupe,’ said Trevelyan, who had hardly spoken before.

‘Ah, that is an affair of honesty,’ said the elder.  ’If we want honesty, I believe we must go back to the stars and stripes.’

Mr Glascock looked up from his plate almost aghast.  He said nothing, however, but called for the waiter, and paid for his breakfast.  Nevertheless, there was a considerable amount of travelling friendship engendered between the ladies and our two friends before the diligence had left the railway yard.  They were two Miss Spaldings, going on to Florence, at which place they had an uncle, who was minister from the States to the kingdom of Italy; and they were not at all unwilling to receive such little civilities as gentlemen can give to ladies when travelling.  The whole party intended to sleep at Turin that night, and they were altogether on good terms with each other when they started on the journey from St. Michael.

‘Clever women those,’ said Mr Glascock, as soon as they had arranged their legs and arms in the banquette.

‘Yes, indeed.’

‘American women always are clever and are almost always pretty.’

‘I do not like them,’ said Trevelyan who in these days was in a mood to like nothing.  ’They are exigent and then they are so hard.  They want the weakness that a woman ought to have.’

’That comes from what they would call your insular prejudice.  We are accustomed to less self-assertion on the part of women than is customary with them.  We prefer women to rule us by seeming to yield.  In the States, as I take it, the women never yield, and the men have to fight their own battles with other tactics.’

‘I don’t know what their tactics are.’

’They keep their distance.  The men live much by themselves, as though they knew they would not have a chance in the presence of their wives and daughters.  Nevertheless they don’t manage these things badly.  You very rarely hear of an American being separated from his wife.’