destinies of nations. Her companion turned several times to address
her, but it would have been as easy for a soldier to slap a general
on the back. Finally she turned to him.

"Now when we get there," she instructed, "don't seem at all
interested in things. Act--oh, bored, you know, and seeming to want
to get me away. And when they tell the price, no matter what they
say, just--well sort of groan and hold your head and act as though
you are absolutely overcome at the thought of such an outrage."

"U--m. You have to do that here to get--lace?"

"You have to do that here to get _anything_---at the price you
should get it. You, and people who go shopping the way you do, bring
discredit upon the entire American nation."

"That so? Sorry. Never meant to do that. All right, Young Lady, I'll
do the best I can. Never did act that way, but suppose I can, if the
rest of them do."

"Groan and hold my head," she heard him murmuring as they entered
the shop.

He proved an apt pupil. It may indeed be set down that his aptitude
was their undoing. They had no sooner entered the shop than he
pulled out his watch and uttered an exclamation of horror at the
sight of the time. Virginia could scarcely look at the lace, so
insistently did he keep waving the watch before her. His contempt
for everything shown was open and emphatic. It was also articulate.
Virginia grew nervous, seeing the real red showing through in the