"
"Everybody looks cheerful enough," Beatrice Cary observed. "I always
thought poverty and worry went together."
"Who is that talking about poverty and worry?" asked a voice behind them.
"Is it you, Miss Caruthers? If so, I shall arraign you as a disturber of
the peace. Who wants to be bothered with the memory of his empty purse on
such a lovely day?"
Lois turned with a smile to the new-comer.
"No, I am innocent, Captain Stafford," she said. "It was Miss Cary who
brought up the terms you object to."
"Well, won't you introduce me, then, so that I can express my displeasure
direct to the culprit?"
The ceremony of introduction was gone through, on Beatrice Cary's side
with a sudden change of manner. Hitherto cold, indifferent, slightly
supercilious, she now relaxed into a gentleness that was almost appealing.
"This is a new world for me," she said, looking up into Captain Stafford's
amused face, "and I have so many questions to ask that I am afraid of
turning into a mark of interrogation, or--as you said--a disturber of
the peace."
"You won't ask questions long," he answered, with a wise shake of the
head. "Nobody does. Wherever English people go they take their whole
paraphernalia with them; and you will find that, with a few superficial
differences, Marut is no more or less than a snug little English suburb.
A little more freedom of intercourse--a little less Philistinism,
perhaps--but the foundations are the same.
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