March's nationality, but found nothing wonderful in it,
apparently; and when she left the train she left Mrs. March to recall
with fond regret the old days in Italy when she first came abroad, and
could make a whole carriage full of Italians break into ohs and ahs by
saying that she was an American, and telling how far she had come across
the sea.
"Yes," March assented, "but that was a great while ago, and Americans
were much rarer than they are now in Europe. The Italians are so much
more sympathetic than the Germans and English, and they saw that you
wanted to impress them. Heaven knows how little they cared! And then, you
were a very pretty young girl in those days; or at least I thought so."
"Yes," she sighed, "and now I'm a plain old woman."
"Oh, not quite so bad as that."
"Yes, I am! Do you think they would have cared more if it had been Miss
Triscoe?"
"Not so much as if it had been the pivotal girl. They would have found
her much more their ideal of the American woman; and even she would have
had to have been here thirty years ago."
She laughed a little ruefully. "Well, at any rate, I should like to know
how Miss Triscoe would have affected them."
"I should much rather know what sort of life that English woman is living
here with her German husband; I fancied she had married rank.
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