them. I have sketched in some detail the conditions in which he
made the acquaintance of Miss Day, because the event had a certain
importance for this fair square Teuton; but I must pass briefly over
the incidents that immediately followed it. He wondered what it was
open to him, after such an introduction, to do in relation to her,
and he determined he would push through his American tale and
discover what the hero did. But he satisfied himself in a very
short time that Miss Day had nothing in common with the heroine of
that work save certain signs of habitat and climate--and save,
further, the fact that the male sex wasn't terrible to her. The
local stamp sharply, as he gathered, impressed upon her he estimated
indeed rather in a borrowed than in a natural light, for if she was
native to a small town in the interior of the American continent one
of their fellow-passengers, a lady from New York with whom he had a
good deal of conversation, pronounced her "atrociously" provincial.
How the lady arrived at this certitude didn't appear, for Vogelstein
observed that she held no communication with the girl. It was true
she gave it the support of her laying down that certain Americans
could tell immediately who other Americans were, leaving him to
judge whether or no she herself belonged to the critical or only to
the criticised half of the nation. Mrs. Dangerfield was a handsome
confidential insinuating woman, with whom Vogelstein felt his talk
take a very wide range indeed. She convinced him rather effectually
that even in a great democracy there are human differences, and that
American life was full of social distinctions, of delicate shades,
which foreigners often lack the intelligence to perceive. Did he
suppose every one knew every one else in the biggest country in the
world, and that one wasn't as free to choose one's company there as
in the most monarchical and most exclusive societies? She laughed
such delusions to scorn as Vogelstein tucked her beautiful furred