Lifted Masks; stories

Excerpt

"ONE OF THOSE IMPOSSIBLE AMERICANS"

"N'avez-vous pas—" she was bravely demanding of the clerk when she saw that the bulky American who was standing there helplessly dangling two flaming red silk stockings which a copiously coiffured young woman assured him were bien chic was edging nearer her. She was never so conscious of the truly American quality of her French as when a countryman was at hand. The French themselves had an air of "How marvellously you speak!" but fellow Americans listened superciliously in an "I can do better than that myself" manner which quite untied the Gallic twist in one's tongue. And so, feeling her French was being compared, not with mere French itself, but with an arrogant new American brand thereof, she moved a little around the corner of the counter and began again in lower voice: "Mais, n'avez—"

"Say, Young Lady," a voice which adequately represented the figure broke in, "you, aren't French, are you?"

She looked up with what was designed for a haughty stare. But what is a haughty stare to do in the face of a broad grin? And because it was such a long time since a grin like that had been grinned at her it happened that the stare gave way to a dimple, and the dimple to a laughing: "Is it so bad as that?"

"Oh, not your French," he assured her. "You talk it just like the rest of them. In fact, I should say, if anything—a little more so. But do you know,"—confidentially—"I can just spot an American girl every time!"

"How?" she could not resist asking, and the modest black hose she was thinking of purchasing dangled against his gorgeous red ones in friendliest fashion.

"Well, Sir—I don't know. I don't think it can be the clothes,"—judicially surveying her.

"The clothes," murmured Virginia, "were bought in Paris."

"Well, you've got me. Maybe it's the way you wear 'em. Maybe it's 'cause you look as if you used to play tag with your brother. Something—anyhow—gives a fellow that 'By jove there's an American girl!' feeling when he sees you coming round the corner."

"But why—?"

"Lord—don't begin on why. You can say why to anything. Why don't the French talk English? Why didn't they lay Paris out at right angles? Now look here, Young Lady, for that matter—why can't you help me buy some presents for my wife? There'd be nothing wrong about it," he hastened to assure her, "because my wife's a mighty fine woman."

The very small American looked at the very large one. Now Virginia was a well brought up young woman. Her conversations with strange men had been confined to such things as, "Will you please tell me the nearest way to—?" but preposterously enough—she could not for the life of her have told why—frowning upon this huge American—fat was the literal word—who stood there with puckered-up face swinging the flaming hose would seem in the same shameful class with snubbing the little boy who confidently asked her what kind of ribbon to buy for his mother.

"Was it for your wife you were thinking of buying these red stockings?" she ventured....