The reaction of the Moreens, at any rate, went ever so much
further. He had thought himself very sharp that first day in hitting
them all off in his mind with the "cosmopolite" label. Later it seemed
feeble and colourless--confessedly helplessly provisional.
He yet when he first applied it felt a glow of joy--for an instructor he
was still empirical--rise from the apprehension that living with them
would really he to see life. Their sociable strangeness was an
intimation of that--their chatter of tongues, their gaiety and good
humour, their infinite dawdling (they were always getting themselves up,
but it took forever, and Pemberton had once found Mr. Moreen shaving in
the drawing-room), their French, their Italian and, cropping up in the
foreign fluencies, their cold tough slices of American. They lived on
macaroni and coffee--they had these articles prepared in perfection--but
they knew recipes for a hundred other dishes. They overflowed with music
and song, were always humming and catching each other up, and had a sort
of professional acquaintance with Continental cities.
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