him feel by instinct it would be more a breach of etiquette to
question him closely than to question any one he had ever met with.

They walked on along the road for some minutes together, the
stranger admiring all the way the golden tresses of the laburnum
and the rich perfume of the lilac, and talking much as he went of
the quaintness and prettiness of the suburban houses. Philip
thought them pretty, too (or rather, important), but failed to see
for his own part where the quaintness came in. Nay, he took the
imputation as rather a slur on so respectable a neighbourhood: for
to be quaint is to be picturesque, and to be picturesque is to be
old-fashioned. But the stranger's voice and manner were so
pleasant, almost so ingratiating, that Philip did not care to
differ from him on the abstract question of a qualifying epithet.
After all, there's nothing positively insulting in calling a house
quaint, though Philip would certainly have preferred, himself, to
hear the Eligible Family Residences of that Aristocratic
Neighbourhood described in auctioneering phrase as "imposing,"
"noble," "handsome," or "important-looking."

Just before they reached Miss Blake's door, the Alien paused for a
second. He took out a loose handful of money, gold and silver
together, from his trouser pocket. "One more question," he said,
with that pleasant smile on his lips, "if you'll excuse my
ignorance. Which of these coins is a pound, now, and which is a
sovereign?"

"Why, a pound IS a sovereign, of course," Philip answered briskly,
smiling the genuine British smile of unfeigned astonishment that
anybody should be ignorant of a minor detail in the kind of life he