“But away with them both!” muttered Dangelis to himself, as he strode viciously down the central street of Nevilton. The American was in very truth, and he felt he was, for all his artistic receptivity, an alien and a foreigner in the midst of these time-worn traditions. In spite of their beauty he knew himself profoundly opposed to them. They excited fibres of opposition and rebellion in him, that went down to the very depths of his nature. If, allowing full scope to our speculative fancy--and who knows upon what occult truths these wandering thoughts sometimes stumble?--we image the opposing “streams of tendency,” in Nevilton village, as focussed and summed up, in the form of the Gothic church, guarded by the consecrated Mount, and the form of the Elizabethan house, owned by the owner of Leo’s Hill, it is clear that this wanderer, from the shores of the Great Lakes, was equally antagonistic to both of them. He brought into the place a certain large and elemental indifference. To the child of the winds and storms of the Great Lakes, as, so one might think, to the high fixed stars themselves, this local strife of opposed mythologies must needs appear a matter of but trifling importance. The American was not permitted, on this occasion, to pursue his meditations uninterrupted to the end of his walk. Half-way down the south drive he was overtaken by Gladys, returning from the village post-office. “Hullo! How have you got on?” she cried. “I suppose you’ll believe me another time? You know now, I expect, how impossible the Yeoborough shops are!” “On the contrary,” said the artist smiling, “I have found them extremely good. Perhaps I am less exacting,” he added, “than some artists.” “I am exacting in everything,” said Gladys, “especially in people. That is why I get on so well with you. You are a new experience to me.” Dangelis made no reply to this and they paced in silence under the tall exotic cedars until they reached the house. “There’s mother!” cried the girl, pushing open the door that led into the kitchen premises, and pulling the American unceremoniously in after her. They found Mrs. Romer before a large oak table, set in the mullioned window of the housekeeper’s little room. She was arranging flowers for the evening’s dinner-table. The plump lady welcomed Dangelis effusively and made him sit down upon a Queen Anne settle of polished mahogany which stood in the corner of the fire-place. Gladys remained standing, a tall softly-moulded figure, appealingly girlish in her light muslin frock. She swayed slightly, backwards and forwards, pouting capriciously at her mother’s naive discourse, and loosening her belt with both her hands.