“What a lovely evening, Miss Traffio,” said Vennie shyly, but without embarrassment. Vennie was always shy, but nothing ever interfered with her self-possession. “I am glad you are showing Mr. Andersen these orchards of ours. I always think they are the most secluded place in the whole village.” “Ha!” said Mr. Taxater, when he had greeted them with elaborate and friendly courtesy, “I thought you two were bound to make friends sooner or later! I call you my two companions in exile, among our dear Anglo-Saxons. Miss Traffio I know is Latin, and you, sir, must have some kind of foreign blood. I am right, am I not, Mr. Andersen?” James looked at him humorously, though a little grimly. He was always pleased to be addressed by Mr. Taxater, as indeed was everybody who knew him. The great scholar’s detached intellectualism gave him an air of complete aloofness from all social distinctions. “Perhaps I may have,” he answered. “My mother used to hint at something of the kind. She was always very fond of foreign books. I rather fancy that I once heard her say something about a strain of Spanish blood.” “I thought so! I thought so!” cried Mr. Taxater, pulling his hat over his eyes and protruding his chin and under-lip, in the manner peculiar to him when especially pleased. “I thought there was something Spanish in you. How extraordinarily interesting! Spain,--there is no country like it in the world! You must go to Spain, Mr. Andersen. You would go there in a different spirit from these wretched sight-seers who carry their own vulgarity with them. You would go with that feeling of reverence for the great things of civilization, which is inseparable from the least drop of Latin blood.” “Would _you_ like to see Spain, Miss Traffio?” enquired Vennie. “Mr. Taxater, I notice, always leaves out us women, when he makes his attractive proposals. I think he thinks that we have no capacity for understanding this civilization he talks of.” “I think you understand everything, better than any man could,” murmured Lacrima, conscious of an extraordinary depth of sympathy emanating from this frail figure. “Miss Seldom has been trying to make me appreciate the beauty of these orchards,” went on Mr. Taxater, addressing James. “But I am afraid I am not very easily converted. I have a prejudice against orchards. For some reason or other, I associate them with dragons and serpents.” “Miss Seldom has every reason to love the beautiful aspects of our Nevilton scenery,” said the stone-carver. “Her ancestors possessed all these fields and orchards so long, that it would be strange if their descendant did not have an instinctive passion for them.” He uttered these words with that curious undertone of bitterness which marked all his references to aristocratic pretension. Little Vennie brushed the sarcasm gently aside, as if it had been a fluttering moth.