A high laugh rang with a note of childlike merriment from the far end of the coffee-room as Bernard Merefleet, who was generally considered a bear on account of his retiring disposition, entered and took his seat near the door.

It was a decidedly infectious laugh and perhaps for this reason it was the first detail to catch his attention and to excite his disapproval.
He frowned as he glanced at the menu in front of him.
He had arrived in England after an absence of twenty years in America, where he had made a huge fortune.

He was hungering for the quiet unhurried speech of his fellow-countrymen, for the sights and sounds and general atmosphere of English life which for so long had been denied to him.

And the first thing he heard on entering the coffee-room of this English hotel was the laugh of an American woman.
He had thought that in this remote corner of England--this little, old-world fishing town, with its total lack of entertainment, its unfashionable beach, and its wild North Sea breakers--no unit of the great Western race would have set foot.

He had believed its entire absence of attraction to be a sure safeguard, and he was unfeignedly disgusted to discover that this was not the case.
As he ate his dinner the high laugh broke in on his meditations again and again, and his annoyance grew to a sense of savage irritation.