"There was a French lady said to me at the _table-d'hote_ this evening that she knew I was an American, because the Americans always strike the key of personality." He practised these economies of material in conversation quite recklessly, and often made the same incident or suggestion do duty round a whole company. "Ah, I don't believe that," said Miss Graham. "Believe what?" "That the Americans always talk about themselves." "I'm not sure she meant that. You never can tell what a person means by what he says--or _she_." "How shocking!". "Perhaps the French lady meant that we always talk about other people. That's in the key of personality too." "But I don't believe we do," said Miss Graham. "At any rate, _she_ was talking about _us_, then." "Oh, she accounted for that by saying there was a large American colony in Paris, who had corrupted the French, and taught them our pernicious habit of introspection." "Do you think we're very introspective?" "Do you?" "I know I'm not. I hardly ever think about myself at all. At any rate, not till it's too late. That's the great trouble. I wish I could. But I'm always studying other people. They're so much more interesting." "Perhaps if you knew yourself better you wouldn't think so," suggested Colville. "Yes, I know they are. I don't think any young person can be interesting." "Then what becomes of all the novels? They're full of young persons." "They're ridiculous. If I were going to write a novel, I should take an old person for a hero--thirty-five or forty." She looked at Colville, and blushing a little, hastened to add, "I don't believe that they begin to be interesting much before that time. Such flat things as young men are always saying! Don't you remember that passage somewhere in Heine's _Pictures of Travel_, where he sees the hand of a lady coming out from under her mantle, when she's confessing in a church, and he knows that it's the hand of a young person who has enjoyed nothing and suffered nothing, it's so smooth and flower-like? After I read that I hated the look of my hands--I was only sixteen, and it seemed as if I had had no more experience than a child. Oh, I like people to go _through_ something. Don't you?" "Well, yes, I suppose I do. Other people." "No; but don't you like it for yourself?" "I can't tell; I haven't been through anything worth speaking of yet." Miss Graham looked at him dubiously, but pursued with ardour: "Why, just getting back to Florence, after not having been here for so long--I should think it would be so romantic. Oh dear! I wish I were here for the second time." "I'm afraid you wouldn't like it so well," said Colville. "I wish I were here for the first time. There's nothing like the first time in everything." "Do you really think so?" "Well, there's nothing like the first time in Florence." "Oh, I can't imagine it. I should think that recalling the old emotions would be perfectly fascinating."