The doctors had warned Sophie that Chapin was not to take interest even in other men's interests; but a familiar sensation at the back of the neck after one hour's keen talk with a Nauheimed railway magnate saved her any trouble. He nearly wept.
"And I'm over thirty," he cried. "With all I meant to do!""Let's call it a honeymoon," said Sophie. "D' you know, in all the six years we've been married, you've never told me what you meant to do with your life?""With my life? What's the use? It's finished now." Sophie looked up quickly from the Bay of Naples. "As far as my business goes, Ishall have to live on my rents like that architect at San Moritz.""You'll get better if you don't worry; and even if it rakes time, there are worse things than--How much have you?""Between four and five million. But it isn't the money. You know it isn't. It's the principle. How could you respect me? You never did, the first year after we married, till I went to work like the others. Our tradition and upbringing are against it. We can't accept those ideals.""Well, I suppose I married you for some sort of ideal," she answered, and they returned to their forty-third hotel.
In England they missed the alien tongues of Continental streets that reminded them of their own polyglot cities. In England all men spoke one tongue, speciously like American to the ear, but on cross-examination unintelligible., "Ah, but you have not seen England," said a lady with iron-grey hair. They had met her in Vienna, Bayreuth, and Florence, and were grateful to find her again at Claridge's, for she commanded situations, and knew where prescriptions are most carefully made up. "You ought to take an interest in the home of our ancestors as I do.""I've tried for a week, Mrs. Shonts," said Sophie, "but I never get any further than tipping German waiters.""These men are not the true type," Mrs. Shouts went on. "I know where you should go."Chapin pricked up his ears, anxious to run anywhere from the streets on which quick men, something of his kidney, did the business denied to him.