The Princess Passes

								

their talk was generally of what we passed by the way, occasionally
interspersed by a "Do you remember?"
Now, if there is an insufferable companion under the sun, it is the
average "well-informed person" who continually dins into your ears
things you were born knowing. This I resent, for I flatter myself that
I was born knowing a good many exceptionally interesting and exciting
things which can't be learned by studying history, geography, or even
Tit-Bits. Jack Winston, however, though he has actually taken the
trouble to house in his memory an enormous number of facts,--"those
brute beasts of the language,"--has so tamed and idealised the
creatures as to make them not only tolerable but attractive. I can
even hear him tell things which I myself don't know or have forgotten,
without instantly wishing to throw a jug of water at his good-looking
head; indeed, I egg him on and have been tempted to jot down an item
of information on my shirt cuff, with a view of fixing it in my mind,
and eventually getting it off as my own.
Whenever Molly or I admired any object, natural or artificial, it
seemed that Jack knew all about it. She showed a flattering interest
in everything he said, and, fired by her compliments, he suddenly
exclaimed: "Look here, Molly, suppose we don't hurry on, the way we've
been planning to do? Last year we had that wonderful chain of feudal
châteaux in Touraine, to show us what kingly and noble life was in dim
old days. Now, all along the Seine and near it, we shall have some
splendid churches instead of castles. We can hold a revel, almost an
orgie, of magnificent ecclesiastical architecture if we like to spend
the time. I've got Ferguson's book and Parker's, anyhow, and why
shouldn't we run off the beaten track----"
"No, dearest," said his wife gently, but firmly, and I could have
hugged her. My bump of reverence for the Gothic in all its
developments is creditably large, but in my present "lowness of mind,"
as Molly would say, a long procession of cold, majestic cathedrals
would have reduced me to a limp pulp. "No," Molly went on, "I can't
help thinking that the churches would be a sort of anticlimax after
our beloved, warm-blooded châteaux. It would be like being taken to
see your great-grandmother's grave when you'd been promised a matinée.
You know we engaged to get Lord Lane into his lonely fastnesses as
soon as possible----"
"I don't believe Monty's in any hurry for them," said Jack,
crestfallen. "You ask him if----"
"He'd be too polite to be truthful. No, I'm sure that edelweiss will
do him more good than rose windows, and mountain air than incense."
As she thus prescribed for my symptoms, she gazed through her talc
window with marked particularity into her "Lightning Conductor's"
un-goggled face. It wore a puzzled expression at first, which suddenly
brightened into comprehension. "Do they repent having brought me
along, and want to get rid of me?" I asked myself. I could scarcely