Beatrice Cochrane stayed on at Sunflowers while the formalities of her marriage were being arranged. Patricia found her very difficult to understand. She combined, bewilderingly, idealism and common-sense, a feeling for poetry with unfailing judgment of practical values. Educationally, the Englishwoman found herself quite overmastered: the comprehensiveness of Beatrice’s college-training made British standards seem entirely out of date. And yet, in a way, Beatrice was old-fashioned; she lacked, Patricia thought, adaptability; inclined to let “ought to be” dominate “is.” Sometimes, this lack of adaptability irritated Patricia.

Beatrice, on her part, was equally puzzled. She had, as yet, no key to the English mentality. England, regarded from the Sunflowers viewpoint, appeared to her a country of postponement and acceptance. Rightly or wrongly, a thing was thus and so. If right, why seek to improve. If wrong—extraordinary, she thought, how easily the English admitted a thing could be wrong—put up with it. Sometimes, this putting-up-with-things made Beatrice perfectly furious!

But in spite of these fundamental Anglo-American differences Patricia loved Beatrice, and Beatrice—frankly—adored Patricia. At the end of three days, not only “Mrs. Jameson,” but “Mr. Jameson” and “Mr. Gordon” disappeared from the American girl’s vocabulary: and on the evening of April the fifth—when the last remnants of Peter’s wine-cellar celebrated America’s entry into the lists—it was Beatrice who proposed: “Pat! Because, just for once, she forgot to behave like an Englishwoman.”

At which reference to forbidden topics, Peter’s wife blushed perfectly scarlet, and looked appealingly to Francis for protection. But Francis Gordon only laughed, “It’s the least you deserve for interfering.”

“And I think,” went on Beatrice, “that while drinking Pat’s health we ought not to forget another person whose name also begins with P....”

“Meaning me?” interrupted Peter.

“No, sir,”—her eyes twinkled with fun—“meaning my future”—she laughed outright—“butler. Prout!”

“Lord,” said Francis Gordon. “This is what comes of getting engaged to a Democrat.”

“Republican,” corrected Beatrice. “And I don’t believe you know the difference yet.”

Her fiancÉ subsided into adoring silence.... For already even the unobservant Peter saw quite clearly who would rule the roost at Glen Cottage!

And apparently this tender “bossing” was just the one thing needful to Francis Gordon’s temperament. He expanded under it; became positively human. His very physique seemed to improve: the hopeless shuffle became a mere limp; he carried his head erect, his shoulders unbowed. She forbade him to use the word “cripple”; and for two pins she would have taken away his stick. “But it makes me so interesting,” he protested laughingly. “My dear man”—Beatrice drawled the words in imitation—“there’s only one thing really interesting about anybody.” “And that?” he queried. “Is the work they mean to do in the world.”

On this question of work, the girl brooked no doubting. She believed in his work; and for her sake if for nobody else’s—(“there is nobody else,” he remonstrated: “there’s everybody else in the world,” she told him)—he must succeed. “You’ve got to count,” she said. “You’ve got to be somebody.” She did not desire money for him—she had so much money that Francis, when he first heard of it, almost wanted to cry off the marriage; but she did desire success. Until he won that “success,” neither he nor she would move from Glen Cottage....

But as this is only indirectly the tale of Francis and Beatrice, we must not analyse them too deeply. It suffices that they are utterly happy in each other; that Love, which is finer than reason, does not blind but rather gives them clear vision. They know, as they tolerate, each other’s faults: and though Fame has not yet quite come to Glen Cottage, they feel they can already hear the beating of his wings.... And if they are a trifle “cranky” on the subject of “Anglo-Saxondom,” if they set the unity of the English-speaking races above the pipe-dreams of the internationalists,—that blame, if blame it be, their very love-story excuses....