“Would you very kindly,” she said, “move that large fauteuil a little more this way? Not the largest; the one with the little cushion. The fauteuils here are very insufficient; I must ask Madame Beaurepas for another. Thank you; a little more to the left, please; that will do. Are you particularly engaged?” she inquired after she had seated herself. “If not I should like briefly to converse with you. It’s some time since I’ve met a young American of your—what shall I call it?—affiliations. I’ve learned your name from Madame Beaurepas; I must have known in other days some of your people. I ask myself what has become of all my friends. I used to have a charming little circle at home, but now I meet no one I either know or desire to know. Don’t you think there’s a great difference between the people one meets and the people one would like to meet? Fortunately, sometimes,” my patroness graciously added, “there’s no great difference. I suppose you’re a specimen—and I take you for a good one,” she imperturbably went on—“of modern young America. Tell me, then, what modern young America is thinking of in these strange days of ours. What are its feelings, its opinions, its aspirations? What is its _ideal_?” I had seated myself and she had pointed this interrogation with the gaze of her curiously bright and impersonal little eyes. I felt it embarrassing to be taken for a superior specimen of modern young America and to be expected to answer for looming millions. Observing my hesitation Mrs. Church clasped her hands on the open page of her book and gave a dismal, a desperate smile. “_Has_ it an ideal?” she softly asked. “Well, we must talk of this,” she proceeded without insisting. “Speak just now for yourself simply. Have you come to Europe to any intelligent conscious end?” “No great end to boast of,” I said. “But I seem to feel myself study a little.” “Ah, I’m glad to hear that. You’re gathering up a little European culture; that’s what we lack, you know, at home. No individual can do much, of course; but one mustn’t be discouraged—every little so counts.” “I see that you at least are doing your part,” I bravely answered, dropping my eyes on my companion’s learned volume. “Ah yes, I go as straight as possible to the sources. There’s no one after all like the Germans. That is for digging up the facts and the evidence. For conclusions I frequently diverge. I form my opinions myself. I’m sorry to say, however,” Mrs. Church continued, “that I don’t do much to spread the light. I’m afraid I’m sadly selfish; I do little to irrigate the soil. I belong—I frankly confess it—to the class of impenitent absentees.” “I had the pleasure, last evening,” I said, “of making the acquaintance of your daughter. She tells me you’ve been a long time in Europe.” She took it blandly. “Can one ever be _too_ long? You see it’s _our_ world, that of us few real fugitives from the rule of the mob. We shall never go back to that.”