eyes and smooth shaven, florid cheeks, stood before us with outstretched hand.
The face was an intelligent one, and yet there was about the mouth a certain sneering expresssion which repelled me. I thought then—and afterward I knew it to be true—that here was a man who had drunk of life’s pleasures to the dregs; a man who had seen everything and forgotten nothing; whose life had been a moral failure; one who had lacked sufficient tenacity of purpose to make life a pecuniary success.
And yet why I should thus have estimated him, I scarcely know.
Certainly his dress did not warrant the drawing of any such conclusion.
A suit of rusty black; a waistcoat with innumerable little buttons extending from a dirty collar turned “hindside foremost,” as Maurice put it, and a broad brimmed straw hat all went to indicate a Church of England clergyman. No; it was the face. That spoke louder than broadcloth and buttons. There was no spirituality there.
Maurice was the first to recover himself from the somewhat confused condition of mind into which this abrupt, though not unexpected interruption had thrown us, and taking the proffered hand, he returned the greeting with more warmth than I, under the circumstances, could have displayed.
“Glad to meet you, sir!” he said heartily. “I am Maurice De Veber; this is Mr. George Wylde, my friend. It is unnecessary to ask if you are our countryman, Mr. Philpot. Your manner speaks too plainly. You are an American, of course."
The new comer laughed lightly.
Ah, how many times was I destined to hear that light, sneering laugh in the weeks to come.
“On the contrary,” he replied, “I am an Englishman. There, don’t stare! Don’t expect me to be a boor in consequence. Don’t look round for my bath-tub, my valet, hat box and travelling rug. I said I was an Englishman—so I am by birth, and I am proud of it; but I am prouder still of being a citizen of the world, and of having spent the best part of my life in the United States. Gentlemen, to all intents and purposes I am an American. You have hit the nail squarely on the head.”
