It must not be supposed that we had arrived at this way of thinking by a sudden leap. Again, far from it! My friend and I had been undergraduates, and very proud of ourselves into the bargain, long ago in England. But we had travelled since then, in more senses than one. We had known comfort and we had known the mute impressive numbness of despair. We had made "scoops" at times and celebrated them with joyous junketings. Once we had dined at Delmonico's, a meal of which the memory is still an absurd chaos. We had, moreover, confronted America with a blank wall of unyielding British prejudice. We had entrenched ourselves behind our conception of the thing to do and stupidly refused to do anything else. And we had been beaten to our knees. For it meant eventually either submission or flight. And we never had any intention of flight. We had fixed it firmly in our minds that we would return triumphant to England, some day as yet far off. We were aliens, yes; but we meant to win through at last, to make our dream come true; our dream of a cottage, with honeysuckle and roses, "far from the madding crowd." And so we realized at length that, after all, the country was there before us; that they had not asked us to come; that we might as well do things the way they wanted. All this was sound physic for us. It made us, in the true sense of the word, cosmopolitan, made us broad in culture and stimulated that deep human sympathy and understanding which lay at the root of that impatience with which we awaited the story of our neighbour. I was typing a letter about three o'clock when I heard Mac's quick step on the stairs and the opening of the door. It is his custom to take advantage of his view of the path from the studio window to forestall the postman, and I took no further notice until I heard the hum of conversation. And so I was the last to appear. He was standing in the middle of our room, his back to me, his Derby hat in his hand, looking curiously about the walls. I saw his glance held for a moment by the old English clock with its swinging pendulum and weights. It passed on to the chimney-piece loaded with antique silver, bizarre brasses, candle-snuffers and snuff-boxes. It moved over to the bust of Bill that Von Roon had given her when she was married, a miracle of cunningly-arranged shadows. It fell away from water colour and etching without hint of ulterior interest, and came to rest upon the book-shelves. There was more than politeness in his glance at the books, more than mere curiosity. There was, plainly enough, connoisseurship. In the flicker of an eyelid you can tell it. He turned to meet me as I entered the room. "I'm glad you've come," I said, shaking hands. His clasp was firm, almost athletic. "We tea at four, but I don't think I told you that." "No," he said, "you didn't. I always have tea at three and it didn't occur to me that the custom might be different."