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Not the charge and roaring of the huge red busses, not the glimpse of Westminster’s towers beside the Thames, not the sight of the pale tall houses of Carlton House Terrace, so much delighted Sam and proved to him that incredibly he was in London as did a milk cart on its afternoon delivery—that absurd little cart, drawn by a pony, with the one big brassy milk container, instead of a truck filled with precise bottles.

“That certainly is old-fashioned!” he muttered in the taxicab, greatly content.

They planned to stay at the Berkeley, but when Sam stood at the booking-desk, making himself as large and impassive and traveled-looking as possible, and said casually, “I’d like a suite,” the clerk remarked, “Very sorry, sir—full up.”

“But we wirelessed for reservations!” snapped Fran.

“Come to think of it, I forgot all about sending the radio,” said Sam, looking apologetically at the clerk, apologizing for the rudeness of Fran, his child.

She breathed quickly, angrily, but never yet had she quarreled with him in public.

“You might try the Savoy, sir. Or the Ritz—just across Piccadilly,” the clerk suggested.

They drooped back to the taxicab waiting with their luggage, feeling unwelcome, and when they were safely inside the car, she opened up:

“I do think you might have remembered to send that wireless, considering that you had absolutely nothing else to do aboard—except drink! When I did all the packing and——Sam, do you ever realize that it really wouldn’t injure your titanic industrial mind if you were occasionally just the least little bit thoughtful toward me, if you didn’t leave absolutely everything about the house and traveling for me to do? I don’t think it was very nice of you! And I’m so tired, after the customs and——”

“Hell! I suppose you got the tickets to Europe! I suppose you got our passports——”

“No. Your secretary did! I’m afraid you don’t get any vast credit for that, my dear man!”

That was all the family scene for which they had time before they disembarked at the Ritz, but Fran was able to keep up quite a high level of martyrdom and bad temper, for the Ritz was nearly full, also, and they could not have a suite till the next day. Tonight, Fran had to endure a mere double bedroom with a private bath.

“I suppose,” she stormed, “that I’m expected to spend my entire time in London packing and unpacking and moving and unpacking all over again! This awful room! Oh, I do think you might have remembered——”

All the gaiety was gone from Sam’s large face. He held her arm, painfully, and growled, “Now that’ll do! You ought to be ashamed of yourself! I always deny it, even to you, but you can be the nagging wife! Just the kind you hate! We’ve never had a better room than this, and tomorrow we’ll have a suite, and you needn’t unpack anything besides a toothbrush this evening—we needn’t dress for dinner. You make me sick when you get this suffering, abused, tragedy fit. I know it’s because you’re tired and jumpy, but can’t you ever be tired and jumpy without insisting that every one around you be the same way?”

“Is it necessary for you to shout at me, as a proof of your calmness—your superb masculine calmness—and is it necessary to break my arm? I am not a nagger! I’ve never nagged you! But the fact that you, who are so fond of talking about yourself as the great executive who never forgets a detail——”

“Never say anything of the kind!”

“——could forget to send that wireless, and then you’re too self-satisfied even to be sorry about it——”

“Fran!” His arm circled her; he led her to the window. “Look down there! Piccadilly! London! I’ve always wanted to see it, just as much as you have. Are we going to quarrel now? Do you remember the very first evening I met you, after you’d come back from Europe, and I said we’d come here together? And we have. Togeth——Oh, I guess I sound sentimental, but to be here in England, where all our people came from, with you——”

“I’m sorry. I was naughty. I’m sorry.” Then she laughed. “Only my people didn’t come from here! My revered ancestors galloped around the Bavarian mountains in short green pants, and yodeled, and undoubtedly they fought your ancestors on all possible occasions!”

But her laughter was not very convincing; her restoration to happiness not complete. She said, while she was unpacking her smaller bag, gliding in and out of the bathroom—she said, in rather a lonely, discouraged way:

“Same time, my dear, you aren’t always thoughtful about me. American husbands never are. You’re no worse than the rest, but you’re just as bad. You think of nothing beyond business and golf. It never occurs to you that a woman, poor idiot, is lots more pleased when you remember to send her flowers, or when you ’phone to her at odd hours, just to say you love her, than she would be by a new motor car. Please don’t think I’m nagging—maybe I was before, but I’m not now, really! I do so want us to be happy together! And now that you don’t have to think about business, don’t you think it might be nice to get acquainted with me? I’m really quite a nice person!”

“Nice? Oh, Lord!”

She was cheerfuller, after their long kiss, and he—he became very busy trying to be a thoughtful husband.

And she agreed that it was jolly that they needn’t dress for dinner, and then she unpacked their evening clothes.