While he had been in New York, he had gone with something of the same feeling to see a great English actor play to a crowded house.The great actor had been one who had returned to the country for a third or fourth time, and, in the enthusiasm he had felt in the atmosphere about him, Mount Dunstan had seen not only pleasure and appreciation of the man's perfect art, but--at certain tumultuous outbursts--an almost emotional welcome.The Americans, he had said to himself, were creatures of warmer blood than the English.The audience on that occasion had been, in mass, American.The audience he made one of now, was made up of both nationalities, and, in glancing over it, he realised how large was the number of Americans who came yearly to London.As Lady Anstruthers had done, he found himself selecting from the assemblage the types which were manifestly American, and those obviously English.In the seat next to himself sat a man of a type he felt he had learned by heart in the days of his life as Jem Salter.At a short distance fluttered brilliantly an English professional beauty, with her male and female court about her.
In the stage box, made sumptuous with flowers, was a royal party.
As this party had entered, "God save the Queen" had been played, and, in rising with the audience during the entry, he had recalled that the tune was identical with that of an American national air.How unconsciously inseparable--in spite of the lightness with which they regarded the curious tie between them --the two countries were.The people upon the stage were acting as if they knew their public, their bearing suggesting no sense of any barrier beyond the footlights.It was the unconsciousness and lightness of the mutual attitude which had struck him of late.Punch had long jested about "Fair Americans," who, in their first introduction to its pages, used exotic and cryptic language, beginning every sentence either with "I guess," or "Say, Stranger"; its male American had been of the Uncle Sam order and had invariably worn a "goatee." American witticisms had represented the Englishman in plaid trousers, opening his remarks with "Chawley, deah fellah," and unfailingly missing the point of any joke.Each country had cherished its type and good-naturedly derided it.In time this had modified itself and the joke had changed in kind.Many other things had changed, but the lightness of treatment still remained.And yet their blood was mingling itself with that of England's noblest and oldest of name, their wealth was making solid again towers and halls which had threatened to crumble.
Ancient family jewels glittered on slender, young American necks, and above--sometimes somewhat careless--young American brows.And yet, so far, one was casual in one's thought of it all, still.On his own part he was obstinate Briton enough to rebel against and resent it.They were intruders.He resented them as he had resented in his boyhood the historical fact that, after all, an Englishman was a German--a savage who, five hundred years after the birth of Christ, had swooped upon Early Briton from his Engleland and Jutland, and ravaging with fire and sword, had conquered and made the land his possession, ravishing its very name from it and giving it his own.These people did not come with fire and sword, but with cable and telephone, and bribes of gold and fair women, but they were encroaching like the sea, which, in certain parts of the coast, gained a few inches or so each year.He shook his shoulders impatiently, and stiffened, feeling illogically antagonistic towards the good-natured, lantern-jawed man at his side.
The lantern-jawed man looked good-natured because he was smiling, and he was smiling because he saw something which pleased him in one of the boxes.
