"
Armitage bowed gravely.
"You make it necessary again for me to disavow any allegiance to the
powers that rule Great Britain. I'm really a fair sort of American--I
have sometimes told New York people all about--Colorado--Montana--New
Mexico!"
His voice and manner were those of a gentleman. His color, as Shirley
Claiborne now observed, was that of an outdoors man; she was familiar
with it in soldiers and sailors, and knew that it testified to a vigorous
and wholesome life.
"Of course you're not English!" exclaimed Singleton, annoyed as he
remembered, or thought he did, that Armitage had on some other occasion
made the same protest.
"I'm really getting sensitive about it," said Armitage, more to the
Claibornes than to Singleton. "But must we all be from somewhere? Is it
so melancholy a plight to be a man without a country?"
The mockery in his tone was belied by the good humor in his face; his
eyes caught Shirley's passingly, and she smiled at him--it seemed a
natural, a perfectly inevitable thing to do. She liked the kind tolerance
with which he suffered the babble of Arthur Singleton, whom some one had
called an international bore.
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