Count Otto felt the peril, for he could immediately think of a dozen
men he knew who had married American girls. There appeared now to
be a constant danger of marrying the American girl; it was something
one had to reckon with, like the railway, the telegraph, the
discovery of dynamite, the Chassepot rifle, the Socialistic spirit:
it was one of the complications of modern life.

It would doubtless be too much to say that he feared being carried
away by a passion for a young woman who was not strikingly beautiful
and with whom he had talked, in all, but ten minutes. But, as we
recognise, he went so far as to wish that the human belongings of a
person whose high spirit appeared to have no taint either of
fastness, as they said in England, or of subversive opinion, and
whose mouth had charming lines, should not be a little more
distinguished. There was an effect of drollery in her behaviour to
these subjects of her zeal, whom she seemed to regard as a care, but
not as an interest; it was as if they had been entrusted to her
honour and she had engaged to convey them safe to a certain point;
she was detached and inadvertent, and then suddenly remembered,
repented and came back to tuck them into their blankets, to alter
the position of her mother's umbrella, to tell them something about
the run of the ship. These little offices were usually performed
deftly, rapidly, with the minimum of words, and when their daughter
drew near them Mr. and Mrs. Day closed their eyes after the fashion
of a pair of household dogs who expect to be scratched.

One morning she brought up the Captain of the ship to present to
them; she appeared to have a private and independent acquaintance
with this officer, and the introduction to her parents had the air
of a sudden happy thought. It wasn't so much an introduction as an