She raised her chin and spoke in chill, distant courtesy. "I think you must be English, because I saw you at the 'Panier d'Or'; everyone's English there. I can't make these people understand anything. Perhaps you could be so kind as to tell me how long the boat takes to get to wherever it does get to?" It was a longer speech than she would have made had he been the stranger as whom she proposed to treat him, but it was necessary to let him understand at the outset what was the part she intended to play. He did understand, and assumed his role instantly. "Something under two hours, I think," he said politely, still holding in his hand the hat he had removed on the instant of her breaking silence. "How cool and pleasant the air is after the town!" The boat was moving now quickly between grassy banks topped by rows of ash trees. The landscape on each side spread away like a map intersected with avenues of tall, lean, wind-bent trees, that seemed to move as the boat moved. "Good!" said she to herself; "he means to talk. We shan't sit staring at each other for two hours like stuck pigs. And he really doesn't know me? Or is it the wife? Oh! I wish I'd never come to this horrible country!" Aloud she said, "Yes, and how pretty the trees and fields are--" "So--so nice and green, aren't they?" said he. And she said, "Yes." Each inwardly smiled. In the old days each had been so eager for the other's good opinion, so afraid of seeming commonplace, that their conversations had been all fine work, and their very love-letters too clever by half. Now they did not belong to each other any more, and he said the trees were green, and she said "Yes." "There seem to be a great many people in Bruges," said she. "Yes," he said, in eager assent. "Quite a large number." "There is a great deal to be seen in these old towns. So quaint, aren't they?" She remembered his once condemning in a friend the use of that word. Now he echoed it. "So very quaint," said he. "And the dogs drawing carts! Just like the pictures, aren't they?" "You can get pictures of them on the illustrated post-cards. So nice to send to one's relations at home." She was getting angry with him. He played the game too well. "Ah! yes," he answered, "the dear people like these little tokens, don't they?" "He's getting exactly like a curate," she thought, and a doubt assailed her. Perhaps he was not playing the game at all. Perhaps in these three years he had really grown stupid. "How different it all is from England, isn't it?" "Oh, quite!" said he. "Have you ever been in Holland?" "Yes, once." "What was it like?" she asked. That was a form of question they had agreed to hate--once, long ago. "Oh, extremely pleasant," he said warmly. "We met some most agreeable people at some of the hotels. Quite the best sort of people, you know." Another phrase once banned by both.