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Only this that this un-English Minister, this unworthy servant of the crown, positively admitted into his own mind the idea that there was any possibility of England's being worsted in any war with any state or any number of states! Fancy any one allowing such a thought to remain for an instant in his mind!
And not only were the buildings of the city gigantic and the crowds in the street gigantic, but the voices he had heard in the ways, the uneasiness of Howard, the very atmosphere spoke of gigantic discontent. What country was he in? Still England it seemed, and yet strangely "un-English." His mind glanced at the rest of the world, and saw only an enigmatical veil.
Everybody was hurrying with a blind, insect-like intentness through the dark grey air, porters were calling in un-English English, then trotting with heavy bags, their colourless blouses looking ghostly as they disappeared; Ursula stood at a long, low, zinc-covered barrier, along with hundreds of other spectral people, and all the way down the vast, raw darkness was this low stretch of open bags and spectral people, whilst, on the other side of the barrier, pallid officials in peaked caps and moustaches were turning the underclothing in the bags, then scrawling a chalk-mark.
And I remember noticing that a needle of sunlight, piercing a crack in the gaily-striped awning rested upon a ring which Madame wore, so that the diamonds glittered like sparks of white-hot fire. Colonel Menendez conducted us to a long, lofty library in which might be detected the same note of un-English luxury manifested in the other appointments of the house.
I have given prizes and made an occasional speech on the ground that English brawn is so enviable a possession that it ought to develop itself to the utmost. When I once went to the length of adding that each Englishman should be muscle fit and ready in case of England's sudden need, I saw the lads grin cheerfully at the thought of England in any such un-English plight.
The Rainhams found themselves adopted by this new and cheery band of people at least half of whose names they never learned; not that this seemed to matter in the least. It was something new to them, and very un-English; but there was no doubt that it made landing in a new country a very different thing from their half-fearful anticipations.
And in nothing was he more characteristically un-English than in the frank manifestation of his enjoyment, bubbling over with an infectious jollity, and never, even when touched by years and illness, taking his pleasures after that melancholy manner of our nation to which it is a point of literary honour not more directly to allude. Equally un-English was his frank openness of speech and bearing.
Knowing absolutely nothing about them, she had constructed out of a fertile fancy and a few facts an altogether imaginary America, not at all like the real one; peopled by strange folk quite un-English in their ideas and ways, and very hard to understand and live with.
He enjoyed the opera, the color and music, the propinquity of Kitty. Sometimes their shoulders touched; the indefinable perfume of her hair thrilled him. Kitty had seen all these things so many times that she no longer experienced enthusiasm; but his was so genuine, so un-English, that she found it impossible to escape the contagion.
The slim white fingers of one hand played all the time with a string of magnificent pearls. Her dark, soft eyes black as aloes and absolutely un-English flashed into his. A delightful smile hovered at the corners of her lips. All the time she was talking and he was listening. Lady Mary and her partner passed by unnoticed. At the end of the vestibule they turned and retraced their steps.
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