Again Edward Ashburnham gurgled slightly in his throat; but
Leonora shivered a little, as if a goose had walked over her grave.
And I was passing her the nickel-silver basket of rolls. Avanti! . . .

IV

So began those nine years of uninterrupted tranquillity. They were
characterized by an extraordinary want of any communicativeness
on the part of the Ashburnhams to which we, on our part, replied
by leaving out quite as extraordinarily, and nearly as completely,
the personal note. Indeed, you may take it that what characterized
our relationship was an atmosphere of taking everything for
granted. The given proposition was, that we were all "good
people." We took for granted that we all liked beef underdone but
not too underdone; that both men preferred a good liqueur brandy
after lunch; that both women drank a very light Rhine wine
qualified with Fachingen water--that sort of thing. It was also
taken for granted that we were both sufficiently well off to afford
anything that we could reasonably want in the way of amusements
fitting to our station--that we could take motor cars and carriages
by the day; that we could give each other dinners and dine our
friends and we could indulge if we liked in economy. Thus,
Florence was in the habit of having the Daily Telegraph sent to
her every day from London. She was always an Anglo-maniac,
was Florence; the Paris edition of the New York Herald was
always good enough for me. But when we discovered that the
Ashburnhams' copy of the London paper followed them from
England, Leonora and Florence decided between them to suppress
one subscription one year and the other the next. Similarly it was
the habit of the Grand Duke of Nassau Schwerin, who came