The Man Between

"Add to these troubles ignorance of language and coinage, the utter weariness of railway travel, the plague of customs, the trunk that won't pack, the trains that won't wait, the tiresome sight-seeing, the climatic irritability, broiling suns, headache, loneliness, fretfulness--consequently the pitiful boredom of the new husband."

"Ethel, what you say is certainly too true. I am weary to death of it all. I want to be at Newport with mother, who is having a lovely time there. Of course Basil is very nice to me, and yet there have been little tiffs and struggles--very gentle ones--for the mastery, which he is not going to get. To-day he wanted me to go with him and Canon Shackleton to see something or other about the poor of London. I would not do it. I am so lonely, Ethel, I want to see some one. I feel fit to cry all the time. I like Basil best of anyone in the world, but----"

"But in the solitude of a honeymoon among strangers you find out that the person you like best in the world can bore you as badly as the person you don't like at all. Is that so?"

"Exactly. Just fancy if we were among our friends in Newport. I should have some pleasure in dressing and looking lovely. Why should I dress here? There is no one to see me."

"Basil."

"Of course, but Basil spends all the time in visiting cathedrals and clergymen. If we go out, it is to see something about the poor, or about schools and such like. We were not in London two hours until he was off to Westminster Abbey, and I didn't care a cent about the old place. He says I must not ask him to go to theaters, but historical old houses don't interest me at all. What does it matter if Cromwell slept in a certain ancient shabby room? And as for all the palaces I have seen, my father's house is a great deal handsomer, and more convenient, and more comfortable, and I wish I were there. I hate Europe, and England I hate worst of all."

"You have not seen England. We are all enraptured with its beauty and its old houses and pleasant life."

"You are among friends--at home, as it were. I have heard all about Rawdon Court. Fred Mostyn told me. He is going to buy it."

"When?"

"Some time this fall. Then next year he will entertain us, and that will be a little different to this desolate hotel, I think."