Fourteen months ago I heard the
last American girl speak the last American-girl language that's
come within reach of me. Oh, no,--there WAS one, since, but she
rasped like a rheumatic phonograph and had brick-colored
freckles. Have you got brick-colored freckles?"
"Stand up and see."
"No, SIR!--that is, ma'am. Too much risk."
"Risk! Of what?"
"Freckles. I don't like freckles. Not on YOUR voice, anyway."
"On my VOICE? Are you--"
"Of course I am--a little. Any one is who stays down here more
than a year. But that about the voice and the freckles was sane
enough. What I'm trying to say--and you might know it without a
diagram--is that, from your voice, you ought to be all that a man
dreams of when--well, when he hasn't seen a real American girl for
an eternity. Now I can sit here and dream of you as the loveliest
princess that ever came and went and left a memory of gold and
blue in the heart of--"
"I'm not gold and blue!"
"Of course you're not. But your speech is. I'll be wise, and
content myself with that. One look might pull down, In irrevocable
ruin, all the lovely fabric of my dream.
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