"I thought," he went on, "that possibly the Guion sense of family
honor--"
"Fiddle-faddle! There's no sense of family honor among Americans. There
can't be. You can only have family honor where, as with us, the family
is the unit; whereas, with you, the unit is the individual. The American
individual may have a sense of honor; but the American family is only a
disintegrated mush. What you really thought was that you might get your
money back."
"If you like, madame. That's another way of putting it. If the family
paid me, Miss Guion would feel quite differently--and so would Colonel
Ashley."
"When you say the family," she sniffed, "you mean me."
"In the sense that I naturally think first of its most distinguished
member. And, of course, the greater the distinction the greater must
be--shall I call it the indignity?--of living under an obligation--"
"Am I to understand that you put up this money--that's your American
term, isn't it?--that you put up this money in the expectation that I
would pay you back?"
"Not exactly. I put up the money, in the first place, to save the credit
of the Guion name, and with the intention, if you didn't pay me back, to
do without it."
"And you risked being considered over-officious."
"There wasn't much risk about that," he smiled. "They did think me
so--and do."
"And you got every one into a fix."
"Into a fix, but out of prison."
"Hm!"
She grew restless, uncomfortable, fidgeting with her rings and
bracelets.
"And pray, what sort of a person is this Englishman to whom my niece has
got herself engaged?"
"One of their very finest," he said, promptly. "As a soldier, so they
say, he'll catch up one day with men like Roberts and Kitchener; and as
for his private character--well, you can judge of it from the fact that
he wants to strip himself of all he has so that the Guion name shall owe
nothing to any one outside--"
"Then he's a fool."
"From that point of view--yes. There _are_ fools of that sort, madame.
But there's something more to him."
He found himself reciting glibly Ashley's claims as a suitor in the way
of family, position, and fortune.
"So that it would be what some people might call a good match."
"The best sort of match. It's the kind of thing she's made for--that
she'd be happy in--regiments, and uniforms, and glory, and presenting
prizes, and all that."
"Hm. I shall have nothing to do with it." She rose with dignity. "If my
niece had only held out a little finger--"
"It was a case, madame," he argued, rising, too--"it was a case in which
she couldn't hold out a little finger without offering her whole hand."
"You know nothing about it. I'm wrong to discuss it with you at all. I'm
sure I don't know why I do, except that--"
"Except that I'm an American," he suggested--"one of your own."
"One of my own! Quelle idée! Do you like him--this Englishman?"