"In America?" His brain, a fine, concentrated, Teutonic organ, strove to
grapple with two ideas at once. "You have been in America!"

"Rather. I feel half an American. You have no idea how it changed my
point of view--oh, but in many ways! The men, you see, are so different
from ours. The American woman has a magnificent position--"

"Ridiculous, uppish, spoilt creatures--"

"But how delicious to be spoiled. You will call on my mother?"

Zottmyer almost choked. "I hate the Prussians--above all, that arrogant
junker class. And the name of Niebuhr!--why, it stands for all that
junkerdom means in its most virulent form!"

"I am afraid it does. My brothers are junkers unalloyed. But I can
assure you that my mother is as democratic as one may be in Berlin. She
has quite a number of friends among the intellectuals--"

"Would she consent to your marriage with a--a--_mere_ intellectual?"

"What has that to do with it! It would never occur to me to marry
out of my own class. That is always a mistake. There are, you
see,--well--subtle differences that forbid harmony--"

"You are a snob. I might have seen it before this. You give yourself
airs--" He was now so torn between fury and disappointment,
mortification and Teutonic resentment at being obliged to diverge
abruptly from precisely thought-out tactics, that he forgot his
physical discomfort--and incidentally to use his handkerchief.