Page:Walpole--portrait of man with red hair.djvu/23

 body who is travelling to a place to see what it is like and enjoy its beauty. A friend has told me of it. He says it is the most beautiful place in England."

"Beauty," said the old man, licking his fingers—"a lot you tourists think about beauty—with your and oranges and babies and Americans. If I had my way I'd make the Americans pay a tax, spoiling our country as they do."

"I am an American," said Harkness faintly.

The old man licked his thumb, looked at it, and licked it again. "I wouldn't have thought it," he said. "Where's your accent?"

"I have lived in this country a great many years off and on," he explained, "and we don't all say 'I guess' every moment as novelists make us do," he added, smiling.

Smiling, yes. But how deeply he detested this unfortunate conversation! How happy he had been, and now this old man with his rudeness and violence had smashed the peace into a thousand fragments. But the old man spoke little more. He only stared at Harkness out of his blue eyes, and said:

"Treliss is too beautiful a place for you. It will do you harm," and fell instantly asleep.

Yes, Harkness thought, looking at the rise and fall of the old man's beard, it is strange and indeed