CHAPTER VI
Miss Vance led her party slowly through Scotland and down
again to London. Mrs. Waldeaux went with them. The
girls secretly laughed together at her fine indomitable
politeness, and her violent passion for the Stuarts, and
hate of the Roundheads. But Mr. Perry was bored by her.
"What is it to us," he said, "that Queen Mary paddled
over this lake, or Cromwell's soldiers whitewashed that
fresco? Give me a clean, new American church, anyhow,
before all of your mouldy, tomby cathedrals. These
things are so many cancelled cheques to me. I have
nothing to pay on them. It is live issues that draw on
my heart. You American girls ought to be at home looking
into the negro problem, or Tammany, or the Sugar Trust,
instead of nosing into Rembrandts, or miracles at
Lourdes, or palaces. These are all back numbers. Write
n. g. on them and bury them. So, by the way, is your
Mrs. Waldeaux a back number. My own opinion is that
all men and women at fifty ought to go willingly and be
shut up in the room where the world keeps its second-hand
lumber!"
"Yet nobody," said Lucy indignantly, "is more careful or
tender with Mrs. Waldeaux than you!"
"That is because Mr. Perry has the genuine American awe
of people of good birth," said Jean slyly. "It is the
only trait which makes me suspect that he is a self-made
man."
Mr. Perry, for answer, only bowed gravely. He long ago
had ceased to hide his opinion that Miss Hassard was
insufferable.
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