Page:Dorothy Canfield - Rough-hewn.djvu/439



" is the life!" thought Livingstone many times during the next weeks. He had not enjoyed himself so thoroughly since he came to Europe to live. He was now provided, as he expressed it, with all the cultural advantages of Europe and all the social atmosphere of an American summer-resort; for Miss Mills seemed to wish to try, along with pension life, the unchaperoned familiarity of real American girl-life. Mlle. Vallet, her old school-teacher, companion-dragon was unceremoniously left behind, or sent out by herself to do the conscientious sight-seeing which took all her evenings to record in her diary.

Miss Mills did sight-seeing too. The tacit understanding which grew up at once was that they were all four seriously to see Rome and to make up for the very haphazard way in which heretofore they had been profiting by their situation. It was certainly, thought Livingstone, a most agreeable way to do sight-seeing, in the company of two such good-looking girls, one of them with money to burn. Of course he could have wished, they all would have preferred, some one less lumpish than that great, grim Crittenden to complete their quartet. But not every American is capable, thought Livingstone, tying his necktie in the morning and looking at himself in the glass, not every American is capable of taking on European polish. And of an American business-man what could you expect? Livingstone admired and did his best to imitate the exquisite good-breeding of the two young ladies, which kept them from ever showing the slightest impatience with Crittenden. As far as they were concerned it would have been impossible for Crittenden to guess that he was not in the same class with the other three. An occasional quick look of astonishment from Miss Allen when Crittenden made 431