PART I

Produced by Mark C. Orton, Linda McKeown, Mary Meehan and

the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at

https://www.pgdp.net

Ancestors

A Novel

By Gertrude Atherton

Copyright, 1907, by HARPER & BROTHERS.

New York and London

_All rights reserved._

Published September, 1907.

TO

Emma Beatrice Brunner

PART I

1904

I

Miss Thangue, who had never seen her friend's hand tremble among the

teacups before, felt an edge on her mental appetite, stimulating after

two monotonous years abroad. It was several minutes, however, before she

made any effort to relieve her curiosity, for of all her patron-friends

Victoria Gwynne required the most delicate touch. Flora had learned to

be audacious without taking a liberty, which, indeed, was one secret of

her success; but although she prided herself upon her reading of this

enigma, whom even the ancestral dames of Capheaton looked down upon

inspectively, she was never quite sure of her ground. She particularly

wished to avoid mistakes upon the renewal of an intimacy kept alive by a

fitful correspondence during her sojourn on the Continent. Quite apart

from self-interest, she liked no one as well, and her curiosity was

tempered by a warm sympathy and a genuine interest. It was this capacity

for friendship, and her unlimited good-nature, that had saved her,

penniless as she was, from the ignominious footing of the social

parasite. The daughter of a clergyman in a Yorkshire village, and the

playmate in childhood of the little girls of the castle near by, she had

realized early in life that although pretty and well-bred, she was not

yet sufficiently dowered by either nature or fortune to hope for a

brilliant marriage; and she detested poverty. Upon her father's death

she must earn her bread, and, reasoning that self-support was merely the

marketing of one's essential commodity, and as her plump and indolent

body was disinclined to privations of any sort, she elected the role of

useful friend to fashionable and luxurious women. It was not an exalted

niche to fill in life, but at least she had learned to fill it to

perfection, and her ambitions were modest. Moreover, a certain integrity

of character and girlish enthusiasm had saved her from the more

corrosive properties of her anomalous position, and she was not only

clever enough to be frankly useful without servility, but she had become

so indispensable to certain of her friends, that although still blooming

in her early forties, she would no more have deserted them for a mere

husband than she would have renounced her comfortable and varied

existence for the no less varied uncertainties of matrimony.

It was not often that a kindly fate had overlooked her for so long a

period as two years, and when she had accepted the invitation of one of

the old castle playmates to visit her in Florence, it had been with a

lively anticipation that made dismay the more poignant in the face of

hypochondria. Nevertheless, realizing her debt to this first of her

patrons, and with much of her old affection revived, she wandered from

one capital and specialist to the next, until death gave her liberty.

She was not unrewarded, but the legacy inspired her with no desire for

an establishment beyond her room at the Club in Dover Street, the

companionship of friends not too exacting, the agreeable sense of

indispensableness, and a certain splendor of environment which gave a

warmth and color to life; and which she could not have commanded had she

set up in middle years as an independent spinster of limited income. She

had received many impatient letters while abroad, to which she had

replied with fluent affection and picturesque gossip, never losing touch

for a moment. When release came she had hastened home to book herself

for the house-parties, and with Victoria Gwynne, although one of the

least opulent of her friends, first on the list. She had had several

correspondents as ardent as herself, and there was little gossip of the

more intimate sort that had not reached her sooner or later, but she

found subtle changes in Victoria for which she could not as yet account.

She had now been at Capheaton and alone with her friend for three days,

but there had been a stress of duties for both, and the hostess had

never been more silent. To-day, as she seemed even less inclined to

conversation, although manifestly nervous, Miss Thangue merely drank her

tea with an air of being too comfortable and happy in England and

Capheaton for intellectual effort, and patiently waited for a cue or an

inspiration. But although she too kept silence, memory and imagination

held rendezvous in her circumspect brain, and she stole more than one

furtive glance at her companion.

Lady Victoria Gwynne, one of the tallest women of her time and still one

of the handsomest, had been extolled all her life for that fusion of the

romantic and the aristocratic ideals that so rarely find each other in

the same shell; and loved by a few. Her round slender figure, supple

with exercise and ignorant of disease, her black hair and eyes, the

utter absence of color in her smooth Orientally white skin, the mouth,

full at the middle and curving sharply upward at the corners, and the

irregular yet delicate nose that seemed presented as an afterthought to

save that brilliant and subtle face from classic severity, made her

look--for the most part--as if fashioned for the picture-gallery or the

poem, rather than for the commonplaces of life. Always one of those

Englishwomen that let their energy be felt rather than expressed, for

she made no effort in conversation whatever, her once mobile face had of

late years, without aging, composed itself into a sort of illuminated

mask. As far as possible removed from that other ideal, the British

Matron, and still suggesting an untamed something in the complex centres

of her character, she yet looked so aloof, so monumental, that she had

recently been painted by a great artist for a world exhibition, as an

illustration of what centuries of breeding and selection had done for

the noblewomen of England.

Some years before, a subtle Frenchman had expressed her in such a

fashion that while many vowed he had given to the world an epitome of

romantic youth, others remarked cynically that his handsome subject

looked as if about to seat herself on the corner of the table and smoke

a cigarette. The American artist, although habitually cruel to his

patrons, had, after triumphantly transferring the type to the canvas,

drawn to the surface only so much of the soul of the woman as all that

ran might admire. If there was a hint of bitterness in the lower part of

the face, from the eyes there looked an indomitable courage and much

sweetness. Only in the carnage of the head, the tilt of the chin, was

the insolence expressed that had made her many enemies. Some of the

wildest stories of the past thirty years had been current about her, and

rejected or believed according to the mental habit or personal bias of

those that tinker with reputations. The late Queen, it was well known,

had detested her, and made no secret of her resentment that through the

short-sighted loyalty of one of the first members of her Household, the

dangerous creature had been named after her. But whatever her secrets,

open scandal Lady Victoria had avoided: imperturbably, without even an

additional shade of insolence, never apologizing nor explaining;

wherein, no doubt, lay one secret of her strength. And then her

eminently respectable husband, Arthur Gwynne, second son of the Marquess

of Strathland and Zeal, had always fondly alluded to her as "The

Missus," and lauded her as a repository of all the unfashionable

virtues. To-day, presiding at the tea-table in her son's country-house,

an eager light in her eyes, she looked like neither of her portraits:

more nearly approached, perhaps, poor Arthur Gwynne's ideal of her; not

in the least the frozen stoic of the past three days. When she finally

made an uncontrollable movement that half-overturned the cream-jug,

Flora Thangue's curiosity overcame her, and she murmured, tentatively:

"If I had ever seen you nervous before, Vicky--"

"I am not nervous, but allowances are to be made for maternal anxiety."

"Oh!" Miss Thangue drew a deep breath. She continued, vaguely, "Oh, the

maternal role--"

"Have I ever failed as a mother?" asked Lady Victoria, dispassionately.

"No, but you are so many other things, too. Somehow, when I am away from

you I see you in almost every other capacity."

"Jack is thirty and I am forty-nine."

"_You_ look thirty," replied Flora, with equal candor.

"I am thankful that my age is in Lodge; I can never be tempted to enroll

myself with the millions that were married when just sixteen."

"Oh, you never could make a fool of yourself," murmured her friend.

Then, as Victoria showed signs of relapsing into silence, she plunged in

recklessly; "Jack is bound to be elected. When has he ever failed to get

what he wanted? But you, Vicky dear--is there anything wrong? You had a

bulky letter from California the day I arrived. I do hope that tiresome

property is not giving you trouble. What a pity it is such a long way

off."

"The San Francisco lease runs out shortly. Half of that, and the

southern ranch, are my only independent sources of income. The northern

ranch belongs to Jack. All three are getting less and less easy to let

in their entirety, my agents write me, and I feel half a pauper

already."

"This is not so bad," murmured Flora.

"Strathland would bundle me out in ten minutes if anything happened to

Jack."

"It would be a pity; it suits you." She was not referring to the hall,

which was somewhat too light and small for the heroic mould of its

chatelaine, but to the noble proportions of the old house itself, and

the treasures that had accumulated since the first foundations were laid

in the reign of Henry VI. There were rooms hung with ugly brocades and

velvets never duplicated, state bed-chambers and boudoirs sacred to the

memory of personages whose dust lay half-forgotten in their marbles; but

above all, Capheaton was famous for its pictures. Not only was there an

unusually large number of portraits by masters scattered about the

twenty rooms that lay behind and on either side of the hall, but many

hundreds of those portraits and landscapes from the brushes of artists

fashionable in their day, unknown in the annals of art, but seeming to

emit a faint scent of lavender and rose leaves from the walls of

England's old manor-houses and castles. In the dining-room there was a

full-length portrait of Mary Tudor, black but for the yellow face and

hands and ruff; and another, the scarlet coat and robust complexion

still fresh, of the fourth George, handsome, gay, devil-may-care; both

painted to commemorate visits to Capheaton, historically hospitable in

the past. But Lord Strathland, besides having been presented with six

daughters and an heir as extravagant as tradition demanded, was poor as

peers go, and had more than once succumbed to the titillating delights

of speculation, less cheering in the retrospect. Having a still larger

estate to keep up, he had been glad to lend Capheaton to his second son,

who, being an excellent manager and assisted by his wife's income, had

lived very comfortably upon its yield. Upon his death Elton Gwynne had

assumed possession as a matter of course; and a handsome allowance from

his doting grandfather supplementing his inheritance, the mind of the

haughty and promising young gentleman was free of sordid anxieties.

Lady Victoria's satirical gaze swept the simpering portraits of her

son's great-aunts and grandmothers, with which the hall was

promiscuously hung.

"Of course I am as English as if the strain had never been crossed, if

you mean that. But I'd rather like to get away for a while. I really

ought to visit my California estates, and I have always wanted to see

that part of America. I started for it once, but never even reached the

western boundaries of New York. One of us should spend a year there, at

least; and of course it is out of the question for Jack to leave England

again."

"You would not spend six months out of Curzon Street. You are the most

confirmed Londoner I know."

"Do you think so?"

Miss Thangue replied, impulsively, "I have often wondered if you

numbered satiety among your complexities!"

This was as far as she had ever adventured into the mysterious

backwaters of Victoria's soul, and she dropped her eyelids lest a

deprecating glance meet the contempt it deserved; both with a due regard

for the limit imposed by good taste, despised the faint heart.

"I hate the sight of London!" Her tone had changed so suddenly that

Flora winked. "If it were not for Jack I would leave--get out. I am sick

of the whole game."

"Oh, be on your guard," cried her friend, sharply. "That sort of thing

means the end of youth."

"Youth after fifty depends upon your doctor, your masseuse, and your

dressmaker. I do not say that my present state of mind is sown with

evergreens and immortelles, but the fact remains that for the present I

have come to the end of myself and am interested in no one on earth but

Jack."

Miss Thangue stared into her teacup, recalling the gossip of a year ago,

although she had given it little heed at the time: Victoria had been

transiently interested so often! But all the world knew that when Arthur

Gwynne was killed Sir Cadge Vanneck had been off his head about

Victoria; and that when obvious restrictions vanished into the family

vault he had left abruptly for Rhodesia to develop his mines, and had

not found time to return since. Sir Cadge was about the same age as the

famous beauty, and rose quite two inches above her lofty head. People

had grown accustomed to the fine appearance they made when

together--"Artie" was ruddy and stout--and although Victoria reinforced

her enemies, for Vanneck was one of the most agreeable and accomplished

men in London, the artistic sense of that lenient world was tickled at

their congruities and took their future mating for granted; Arthur

Gwynne was sure to meet his death on the hunting-field, for he was far

too heavy for a horse and rode vilely. When he fulfilled his destiny and

Vanneck fled, the world was as much annoyed as amused. But they were

amused, and Flora Thangue knew that this gall must have bitten deeper

than the loss of Vanneck, who may or may not have made an impression on

this woman too proud and too spoiled to accept homage in public

otherwise than passively, whatever may have been the unwritten tale of

her secret hours. The excuses hazarded by Vanneck's friends were neither

humorous nor sentimental, but no one denied that they were eminently

sensible: his first wife had died childless, his estates were large, his

title was one of the oldest in England. But although no one pitied

Victoria Gwynne, many were annoyed at having their mental attitude

disarranged, and this no doubt had kept the gossip alive and been a

constant source of irritation to a woman whose sense of humor was as

deep as her pride.

Flora replied at random. "Jack couldn't very well get on without you."

His mother's eyes flashed. "I flatter myself he could not--at present.

If Julia Kaye would only marry him!"

"She won't," cried Flora, relieved at the change of tone. "And

why do you wish it? She is two years older, of quite dreadful

origin--and--well--I don't like her; perhaps my opinion is a little

biased."

"She is immensely rich, one of the ablest political women in London, and

Jack is desperately in love with her."

"I cannot picture Jack in extremities about any one, although I don't

deny that he has his sentimental seizures. He even made love to me when

he was cutting his teeth. But he doesn't need a lot of money, you rank

higher than she among the political women, and--well, I believe her to

be bad-tempered, and more selfish than any woman I have ever known."

"He loves her. He wants her. He would dominate any woman he married. He

is such a dear that no woman who lived with him could help loving him.

Moreover, she is inordinately ambitious, and Jack's career is the most

promising in England."

"Jack is far too good for her, and I am glad that he will not get her. I

happen to know that she has made up her mind to marry Lord Brathland."

"Bratty is a donkey."

"She would be the last to deny it, but he is certain to be a duke if he

lives, and she would marry a man that had to be led round with a string

for the sake of being called 'your grace' by the servants. She'll never

be anything but a third-rate duchess, and people that tolerate her now

will snub her the moment she gives herself airs. But I suppose she

thinks a duchess is a duchess."

"Money goes pretty far with us," said Lady Victoria, dryly.

"Doesn't it? Nevertheless--you know it as well as I do--among the people

that really count other things go further, and duchesses have been put

in their place before this--you have done it yourself. Julia Kaye has

kept her head so far because she has been hunting for strawberry leaves,

and there is no denying she's clever; but once she is in the upper

air--well, I have seen her as rude as she dares be, and if she became a

duchess she would cultivate rudeness as part of the role."

"We can be rude enough."

"Yes, and know how to be. A parvenu never does."

"She is astonishingly clever."

"Duchesses are born--even the American ones. Julia Kaye has never

succeeded in being quite natural; she has always the effect of

rehearsing the part of the great lady for amateur theatricals. Poor

Gussy Kaye might have coached her better. The moment she mounts she'll

become wholly artificial, she'll patronize, she'll give herself no end

of ridiculous airs; she won't move without sending a paragraph to the

_Morning Post_. The back of her head will be quite in line with her

charming little bust, and I for one shall walk round and laugh in her

face. She is the only person that could inspire me to such a vicious

speech, but I am human, and as she so ingenuously snubs me as a person

of no consequence, my undazzled eyes see her as she is."

Lady Victoria, instead of responding with the faint, absent, somewhat

irritating smile which she commonly vouchsafed those that sought to

amuse her, lit another cigarette and leaned back among the cushions of

the sofa behind the tea-table. She drew her eyelids together, a rare

sign of perturbation. The only stigma of time on her face was a certain

sharpness of outline and leanness of throat. But the throat was always

covered, and her wardrobe reflected the most fleeting of the fashions,

assuring her position as a contemporary, if driving her dressmaker to

the verge of bankruptcy. When her bright, black, often laughing eyes

were in play she passed with the casual public, and abroad, as a woman

of thirty, but with her lids down the sharpness of the lower part of the

face arrested the lover of detail.

"Are you sure of that?" she asked, in a moment.

"Quite."

"I am sorry. It will be a great blow to Jack. I hoped she would come

round in time."

"She will marry Brathland. I saw Cecilia Spence in town. She was at

Maundrell Abbey with them both last week. You may expect the

announcement any day--she'll write it herself for the _Morning Post_.

How on earth can Jack find time to think about women with the immense

amount of work he gets through?--and his really immodest ambitions!

By-the-way--isn't this polling-day? I wonder if he has won his seat? But

as I said just now I do not associate Jack with defeat. His trifling

set-backs have merely served to throw his manifest destiny into higher

relief."

"The telegram should have come an hour ago. I have few doubts--and yet

he has so many enemies. I wonder if we shall be born into a world, after

we have been sufficiently chastened here, where one can get one's head

above the multitude without rousing some of the most hideous qualities

in human nature? It is a great responsibility! But there has been no

such speaker, nor fighter, for a quarter of a century." Her eyes glowed

again. "And heaven knows I have worked for him."

"What a pity he is not a Tory! He could have a dozen boroughs for the

asking. I wish he were. The whole Liberal party makes me sick. And it is

against every tradition of his family--"

"As if that mattered. Besides, he is a born fighter. He'd hate anything

he could have for the asking. And he's far too modern, too progressive,

for the Conservative party--even if there were anything but blue-mould

left in it."

"Well, you know I am not original, and my poor old dad brought us up on

the soundest Tory principles; he never would even compromise on the word

Conservative. But considering that Jack is as Liberal as if the taint

were in the marrow of his bones, what a blessing that poor Artie did not

happen to be the oldest son. Cecilia says they were all talking of it at

Maundrell Abbey, where of course it is a peculiarly interesting topic.

That ornamental and conscientious peer, Lord Barnstable, has never

ceased to regret his father's death, for reasons far removed from

sentimental. He told Cecilia that Lord Strathland almost confessed to

him that he would give his right eye to hand over his old shoes to Jack,

not only because he detests Zeal, but because it would take the backbone

out of his Liberalism--"

"And ruin _his_ career. Thank heaven Zeal is engaged at last. They will

marry in the spring, and then the only cloud on Jack's horizon will

vanish."

"What if there were no children?"

"There are so much more often than not--that is the least of my worries.

He had five girls by his first wife; there is no reason why this

splendid cow I have picked out should not produce a dozen boys. I never

worked so hard over one of Jack's elections--not only to overcome Zeal's

misogyny, which he calls scruples, but I had to fight Strathland every

inch of the way. When I think of Jack's desperation if he were

pitchforked up into the Peers--you do not know him as I do."

"Well, he is safe for a time, I fancy. There has been consumption in the

family before, and always the slowest sort--"

A footman entered with a yellow envelope on a tray.

Lady Victoria opened it without haste or change of color.

"Jack is returned," she said.

"How jolly," replied the other, with equal indifference.

II

"You look tired--I will take you up to your room. Vicky has so many on

her hands."

The American rose slowly, but with a flash of gratitude in her eyes.

"I am tired, and I don't know a soul here. I almost wish Lady Victoria

had not asked me down, although I have wanted all my life to visit one

of the ancestral homes of England."

"Oh, you'll get over that, and used to us," said Miss Thangue, smiling.

"Your staircase is behind this door, and we can slip out without

attracting attention. They are all gabbling over Jack's election."

She opened a door in a corner of the hall where the newly arrived guests

were gathered about Lady Victoria's tea-table, and led the way up a wide

dark and slippery stair. After the first landing the light was stronger,

and the walls were, to an inch, covered with portraits and landscapes,

the effect almost as careless as if the big open space were a

lumber-room.

"Are they _all_ old masters?" asked Miss Isabel Otis, politely, her eyes

roving over the dark canvases.

"Oh no; the masters are down-stairs. I'll show them to you to-morrow.

These are not bad, though."

"What a lot of ancestors to have!"

"Oh, you'll find them all over the house. These are not Gwynnes. This

house came to Lord Strathland through the female line. It will be Jack's

eventually--one way or another; and Jack must be more like the Eltons

than the Gwynnes--unless, indeed, he is like his American ancestors."

She turned her soft non-committal eyes on the stranger. "You are his

thirty-first cousin, are you not?"

"Not quite so remote. But why do you call him Jack? He is known to fame

as Elton Gwynne."

"His name is John Elton Cecil Gwynne. We are given to the nickname these

days--to the abbreviation in general."

They were walking down a corridor, and Miss Thangue was peering through

her lorgnette at the cards on the doors.

"I know you are on this side. I wrote your name myself. But exactly

where--ah, here it is."

She opened the door of a square room with large roses on the white

wall-paper, and fine old mahogany furniture. The sofa and chairs and

windows were covered with a chintz in harmony with the walls. "It is

cheerful, don't you think so?" asked Miss Thangue, drawing one of the

straight curtains aside. "Vicky had all the rooms done over, and I chose

the designs. She is quite intolerantly modern, and holds that when

wall-paper and chintz can save an old house from looking like a

sarcophagus, why not have them? That bell-cord connects with your maid's

room--"

"I have no maid. I am not well off at all. I wonder Lady Victoria

thought it worth while to ask me down."

"Dear me, how odd! May I sit with you a little while? I never before saw

a poor American girl."

"I'll be only too grateful if you will stay with me as long as you can.

I am not exactly poor. I have a ranch near Rosewater, some property and

an old house in San Francisco. All that makes me comfortable, but no

more; and there are so many terribly rich American girls!"

"There are, indeed!" Miss Thangue sat forward with the frank curiosity

of the Englishwoman when inspecting a foreign specimen. But her

curiosity was kindly, for she was still a girl at heart, interested in

other girls. Miss Otis, looking at her blond, virginal face, took for

granted that she was under thirty, and owed her weight to a fondness for

sweets and sauces.

"How can you travel in Europe if you are not rich?" demanded Flora. "I

never dare venture over except as the guest of some more fortunate

friend."

"Are _you_ poor?" asked Miss Otis, her eye arrested by the smart little

afternoon frock of lace and chiffon and crepe-de-chine.

"Oh, horribly. But then we all are, over here. If it were not for the

Jews and the Americans we'd have to make our own clothes. The

dressmakers never could afford to give us credit."

"They all looked very wealthy down-stairs."

"Smart, rather. This happens to be a set that knows how to dress. Many

don't. You know something of it yourself," she added, with a frank

survey of the girl's well-cut travelling-frock and small hat. "Lots of

Americans don't, if you don't mind my saying so--for all their

reputation. I went to a dinner at an American Legation once and two of

your countrywomen came with their hats on. They had brought letters to

the Minister, and he hadn't taken the precaution of looking them over.

He was terribly mortified, poor thing."

She related the anecdote with philanthropic intention, but Miss Otis put

her half-rejected doubts to flight by remarking, lightly:

"We don't do that even in Rosewater."

"Where _is_ Rosewater? What a jolly name!"

"It is in northern California, not far from Lady Victoria's ranch and

what is left of ours. I have spent most of my life in or near it--my

father was a lawyer."

"Do tell me about yourself!" Like most amiable spinsters, she was as

interested in the suggestive stranger as in a new novel. She sank with a

sigh of comfort into the depths of the chair. "May I smoke? Are you

shocked?"

Then she colored apprehensively, fearing that her doubt might be

construed as an insult to Rosewater.

But Miss Otis met it with her first smile. "Oh no," she replied. "Will

you give me one? Mine are in my trunk and they haven't brought it up."

She took a cigarette from the gayly tendered case and smoked for a few

moments in silence.

"I don't know why you should be interested in my history," she said at

last in her slow cold voice, so strikingly devoid of the national

animation. "It has been far too uneventful. I have an adopted sister,

six years older than myself, who married twelve years ago. Her husband

is an artist in San Francisco, rather a genius, so they are always poor.

My mother died when I was little. After my sister married I took care of

my father until I was twenty-one, when he died--four years ago. There

are very good schools in Rosewater, particularly the High School. My

father also taught me languages. He had a very fine library. But I do

not believe this interests you. Doubtless you want to know something of

the life with which Lady Victoria is so remotely connected."

"I am far more interested in you. Tell me whichever you like first. How

_are_ you related, by-the-way?"

"Father used to draw our family tree whenever he had bronchitis in

winter. One of the most famous of the Spanish Californians was Don Jose

Argueello. We are descended from one of his sons, who had a ranch of a

hundred thousand acres in the south. When the Americans came, long

after, they robbed the Californians shamefully, but fortunately the son

of the Argueello that owned the ranch at the time married an American

girl whose father bought up the mortgages. He left the property to his

only grandchild, a girl, who married my great-grandfather, James Otis--a

northern rancher, born in Boston, and descended from old Sam Adams. He

had two children, a boy and a girl, who inherited the northern and

southern ranches in equal shares. The girl came over to England to visit

an aunt who lived here, was presented at court, and straightway married

a lord."

"Then you are second cousin to Vicky and third to Jack. I had no idea

the relationship was so close."

"It has seemed very remote to me ever since I laid eyes on Lady Victoria

down-stairs. Father made me promise, just before he died, that if ever I

visited Europe I would look her up. Somehow I hadn't thought of her

except as Elton Gwynne's mother, so I wrote to her without a qualm. But

I see that she is an individual."

"Rather! How self-contained our great London is, after all! Vicky has

been a beauty for over thirty years--to be sure her fame was at its

height before you were old enough to be interested in such things. But I

should have thought your father--"

"He must have known all about her. It comes back to me that he was very

proud of the connection for more than family reasons, but it made no

impression on me at the time."

"Proud?"

"Yes, he was rather a snob. He was very clever, but he fell out of

things, and being able to dwell on his English and Spanish connections

meant a good deal to him. I can recite the family history backwards."

"But if he was clever, why on earth did he live in Rosewater? Surely he

could have practised in San Francisco?"

"He drank. When a man drinks he doesn't care much where he lives. My

father had fads but no ambition."

"Great heaven!" exclaimed Miss Thangue, aghast at this toneless

frankness. "You must have been glad to be rid of him!"

"I was fond of him, but his death was a great relief. He was a hard

steady secret drinker. I nursed him through several attacks of delirium

tremens, and was always in fear that he would get out and disgrace us.

Sometimes he did, although when I saw the worst coming I generally

managed to get him over to the ranch. Of course it tied me down. I

rarely even visited my sister. My father hated San Francisco. He had

practised there in his youth, promised great things, had plenty of

money. The time came--" She shrugged her shoulders, although without the

slightest change of expression. "I never lived my own life until he

died, but I have lived it ever since."

"And the first thing you did with your liberty was to come to Europe,"

said Miss Thangue, with a sympathetic smile.

"Of course. My father and uncle had got rid of most of their property

long before they died; there isn't an acre left of our share in the

southern estate. But my uncle died six years ago and willed me all that

remained of the northern, as well as some land in the poorer quarter of

San Francisco. I could not touch the principal during the lifetime of my

father, but we lived on the ranch and I managed it and was entitled, by

the terms of the will, to what I could make it yield. When I was finally

mistress of my fortunes I left it in charge of an old servant, sold

enough to pay off the mortgage on a property in San Francisco I

inherited from my mother, and came to Europe with a personally conducted

tour."

Miss Thangue shuddered. The phrase unrolled a vista of commonness and

attrition. Miss Otis continued, calmly: "That is the way I should feel

now. But it was my only chance then; or rather I had seen enough of

business to avoid making mistakes when I could. In that way I learned

the ropes. After we had been rushed about for six weeks and I could not

have told you whether the Pitti Palace was in Italy or France, and the

celebrated frescos were one vast pink smudge, the party returned and I

wandered on by myself. I spent a winter in Paris, and months in

Brittany, Austria, Italy, Spain--Munich." It was here that her even

tones left their register for a second. "I studied the languages, the

literatures, the peoples, music, pictures. In Munich"--this time Flora's

alert ear detected no vibration--"and also in Rome, I saw something of

society. It was a life full of freedom, and I shall never cease to be

grateful for it, but I must go home soon and look after my affairs. I

left England to the last, like the best things of the banquet. I hope

Lady Victoria--I shall never be able to call her Cousin Victoria, as I

remember father did--will be nice to me. I have seen a good deal of

life, but have never had a real _girl's_ time, and I should love it.

Besides, I have a lot of new frocks."

"I am sure Vicky will be nice to you. If she isn't, I'll find some one

that will be. You might marry Jack if you had money enough. We are dying

to get him married--and a California cousin--it would be too romantic.

And you would hold your own anywhere!"

But Miss Otis expanded a fine nostril. "I have no desire to marry. I

feel as if I had had enough of men to last until I am forty--what with

those I have buried, and others I have known at home and in Europe--to

say nothing of the executors of my uncle's will, who did not approve of

my coming abroad alone and delayed the settlement of the estate as long

as possible. And now I have had too much liberty! Besides, I have seen

'Jack's' picture--two years ago, in a magazine. I will confess I had

some romantic notions about him: imagined him very dashing, bold,

handsome; insolent, if you like--the traditional young aristocrat,

glorified by genius. He looks like Uncle Hiram."

"Is that who Jack looks like? We never could make out. No, Jack is not

much to look at, except when he wakes up--I have seen him quite

transfigured on the platform. But he is as insolent as you could wish,

and has a superb confidence in himself that his enemies call by the most

offensive names. But he is a dear, in spite of all, and I quite adore

him."

"Perhaps; but life, myself, so many mysteries and problems, upon which

I have barely turned a dark lantern as yet, interest me far more than

any man could, unless he were superlative. I have had my disillusions."

She lit another cigarette, and for a few moments looked silently out of

the window at the darkening woods beyond the lawn. Flora Thangue

regarded her with a swelling interest. It was a type of which she had no

knowledge, evidently not a common type even in the hypothetical land of

the free; she had visited New York and Newport and known many Americans.

True, she had never met the provincial type before, but she doubted if

Rosewater had produced a crop of Isabel Otises. What was at the source

of that cold-blooded frankness, so different from the English fashion of

alternately speaking out and knowing nothing? Was she merely an

egoist--it ran in the family--or did it conceal much that she had no

intention of revealing? Her very beauty was of a type rarely seen in the

America of to-day, prevalent as it may have been a hundred years ago:

she looked like a feminine edition of the first group of American

statesmen--although black Spanish hair was pulled carelessly over the

high forehead, a heavy coil encircling the head in a long upward sweep,

and the half-dreaming, half-penetrating regard of the light-blue eyes

was softened by a heavy growth of lash. The eyebrows were low and thick,

the upper lip was sensitive, quivering sometimes as she talked, but the

lower was firm and full. It was the brow, the profile, the strength of

character expressed, the general seriousness of the fine face and head,

that made her look like a reversion to the type that gave birth to a

nation. But Miss Thangue had seen too much of the world to judge any one

by his inherited shell. She had observed many Americans with fine heads

and bulging brows concealing practically nothing, insignificant German

heads whose intellects had terrified her, the romantic Spanish eyes of

the most unromantic people in Europe, English pride and an icy mask of

breeding guarding from the casual eye the most lawless and ribald

instincts. Therefore had she no intention of taking this new specimen on

trust, much as she liked her, and she speculated upon her possibilities

in the friendly silence that had fallen between them. Life is composed

of individuals and their choruses, and Flora, humorously admitting the

fact, was far more interested in others than in herself.

Only in the dense silky masses of her black hair and the almost stolid

absence of gesture did the American betray her Spanish ancestry; but how

much of the Spaniard, subtle, patient, vengeful, treacherous, mighty in

passive resistance and cunning, lay behind those deep fearless blue eyes

of her New England ancestors? Or was she not Spanish at all, but merely

a higher type of American--or wholly herself? Would Jack, susceptible

and passionate, a worshipper of beauty down among the roots of his

abnormal cleverness and egoism, fall in love with her? And what then?

The girl, with her strong stern profile against the shadows, her low

brooding brows, might wield a power far more dangerous than that of the

average fascinating woman, if her will marshalled the rest of her

faculties and drove them in a straight line; although the luminous skin

as polished as ivory, the low full curves and slow graceful movements of

her figure added a potency that Flora, always an amused observer of men,

would have been the last to ignore. Victoria, high-bred, fastidious,

mocking, yet unmistakably passionate and possibly insurgent, was of

that mint of woman about whom men had gone mad since the world began.

But this girl, who might be as cold as the moon, or not, looked, in any

case, capable of clasping a man's throat with her strong little hand,

and gently turning his head from east to west. At this point Miss

Thangue rose impatiently and rang a bell. Jack's career was almost at

the flood. No woman could submerge his intellect and stupendous

interests for more than a moment.

"Order lights and have your trunks brought up," she said. "I will send

one of the housemaids to help you dress. My room is over on the other

side of the house--go through that door opposite, and down a corridor

until you come to another long hall and staircase like the one on this

side. You will find my name on the door. Knock at about a quarter-past

eight and I will go down with you. Vicky may be in an angelic humor and

she may not. It depends mainly upon whether Jack condescends to turn up.

I suppose you know all about him; it would hardly do for you to face him

and his mother if you didn't. He has travelled quite exhaustively in the

colonies and given us some of the most informing literature on that

subject that we have. He was out in Africa when the Boer War broke out,

and once before in India, when there was fighting, volunteered both

times and did brilliant service. He has no end of medals with clasps.

Then he suddenly went in for politics and announced himself an

uncompromising Liberal. It nearly killed his grandfather--Lord

Strathland--for Jack is the one person on earth that he loves as much as

himself; and it has alienated many of his relatives on both sides--which

gave him one more chance to win against terrific odds; he enjoys that

sort of thing. He had been in but two years when there was a general

election, and he has only just got back--he contested three divisions

before he won his seat this time, and he had almost as hard a fight

before. Vicky, who hates the Gwynnes, with the exception of Lord Zeal,

the heir, besides believing in Jack as you would in Solomon, has

steadily upheld him; and she is a powerful ally--not only one of the

most distinguished of the political women, but still turns heads when

she chooses, and her game is generally in the cabinet preserves, when it

is not in the diplomatic. I must run. Put on your most fetching gown.

Julia Kaye, a detestable little parvenu, is here. Jack is in love with

her and she has chosen another. It will be a cousinly duty to console

him. Then you can turn him over to some one else. Ta, ta!" Her last

words floated back from the depths of the corridor; a clock was striking

and she had pattered off hastily.

III

The "Jack," whose more distinguished patronymic was so gayly caracolling

down the road to posterity, had arrived, and after dressing hastily,

sought his mother. Her hair was done, her gown laced; she dismissed her

maid at once, and while her eyes melted, in the fashion of mothers, she

embraced her son with something more than maternal warmth: a curious

suggestion of relief, of stepping out of her own personality and leaving

it like a heap of clothes on the floor. This attitude had occasionally

puzzled her idol, but he was too masculine to analyze. She was his best

friend and a delightful person to have for a mother; her soul might be

her own possession undisturbed. He admired her almost as much as he did

himself, and to-night he kissed her fondly and told her gallantly that

she was looking even more beautiful than usual.

"It is all this white after the dead black," said Lady Victoria, smiling

appreciatively. "I am thankful that prolonged mourning is out of date;

it made a fright of me and was getting on my nerves." She wore no jewels

save a high diamond dog-collar and a few sparkling combs in her hair,

but she made a superb appearance with the long white sweep of shoulders

and bust, her brilliant eyes and smart tailed gown of black chiffon and

Irish lace. Her arms, no longer rounded as when artists had fought to

paint her, were but half-revealed under floating sleeves, and her fair

tapering hands were even younger than her face.

She opened a large black fan and moved it slowly while looking intently

at her son's bent profile. "Something has gone wrong," she said. "Have

you seen Julia Kaye again?"

"No, I was invited to Maundrell Abbey last week, but couldn't manage it,

of course. And I knew she was to be here. Nothing has gone wrong--but I

had rather a shock this morning. I met Zeal at the club. He looks like a

death's head. He vowed he was taking even better care of himself than

usual, but his chest is bad again. He talked about going to Davos--the

very word makes me sick! In the next breath he said he might go out to

Africa. Can't you hurry on his marriage?--persuade Carry that it is her

duty to go with him?"

"I should have no difficulty persuading Carry. The rub is with him.

Compulsory asceticism has bred misogyny, and misogyny scruples. He says

that he has sins enough to his account without laying up a reckoning

with posterity. If it were not for you I should agree with him. I feel

like a conspirator--"

"There is no reason why his children should be consumptive. Carry's

physique is Wagnerian, and she is just the woman to look after her

children herself. Zeal's health was thrown to the dogs by a weak

indulgent frivolous mother, and what she left him he disposed of later

when he made as great an ass of himself as might have been expected. He

is a hypochondriac now and would keep a close watch on his heir's health

and habits; you may be sure of that. He ought not to be in London

now--it is stifling--went up for some business meeting or other--seemed

to wish to avoid details. I hope to heaven he has not been relieving the

monotony of his life by some rotten speculation. I begged him to come

down here, but he wouldn't--says that his hand is no longer steady

enough to hold a gun--it's awful!--worse because I'm not merely fond of

him and regretting the possible loss of a good friend--I have felt like

a beast all day. But I can't help it. For God's sake write and persuade

him to go to Davos at once--and picture the delights of a pretty and

devoted nurse. I feel as if I had ashes in my mouth--and yesterday I was

so happy!" he burst out, with the petulance of a child.

"I will write to-night," she said, soothingly. "He has a very slow form

of consumption; I have the assurance of his doctors. And at least he has

committed himself with Carry, and announced his intention to marry as

soon as a sojourn somewhere has made him feel fit again. You know how

much better he always is when he comes back. Put it out of your mind

to-night. I want you to be as happy as I am. Everybody is talking of the

brilliance of your campaign--"

"Much good brilliance will do me if I am to rot in the Upper House!"

"Put it out of your mind; don't let apprehension control you for a

moment. Believe me, will-power counts in life for more than everything

else combined, and if it isn't watched it weakens."

"All right, mummy. You are never so original as when you preach. So

Julia Kaye came down this afternoon? Talk about will. Mine should be of

pure steel; I have ordered her out of my consciousness these last weeks

at the point of the bayonet. She has written me exactly three times.

However--those letters were charming," he added, with the sudden smile

that transfigured his face, routing the overbearing and contemptuous

expression that had won him so many enemies; friends and flatterers and

the happy circumstances of his life had combined thoroughly to spoil

him. "Do you maintain that will can win a woman?" he added, sharply.

She was the woman to laugh outright at such a suggestion. "No, nor that

it can uproot love, although it can give it a good shaking and lock it

in the dark room. I doubt if you love Julia Kaye, but you will find that

out for yourself. You might bring her to terms by flirting a little with

your American cousin--"

"My what?" He opened his eyes as widely as he had ever done when a

school-boy.

"Of course--I forgot you know nothing of her. She wrote me from

Ambleside--I infer she has been 'doing' England; and as her credentials

were unimpeachable I asked her down. She has inherited a part of the

northern estate and was brought up in the neighboring town of

Rosewater--the American names are too silly. She seems quite _comme il

faut_ and is remarkably handsome. I detest Americans, as you know, but

there certainly is something in blood. I liked her at once. She looks

clever, and is quite off the type--none of the usual fluff. If she

doesn't bore me I shall keep her here for a while."

"I wish you would adopt her," he said, fondly. "I shouldn't be jealous,

for I hate to think of you so much alone." He rose and kissed her

lightly on the forehead, experience teaching him to avoid a stray hair

from the carefully built coiffure. "I'll see if I can waylay Julia on

the stairs; she is always late. Keep from eleven to twelve for me

to-morrow morning. I want to tell you about the campaign. It was a

glorious fight!" His eyes sparkled at the memory of it. "I felt as if

every bit of me had never been alive at once before. My opponent was a

splendid chap. It meant something to beat him. The other side was in a

rage!--more than once yelled for half an hour after I took the platform.

When I finished they yelled again for half an hour--to a different

tune." His slight, thin, rather graceless figure seemed suddenly to

expand, even to grow taller. Some hidden magnetism burst from him like

an aura, and his cold pasty face and light gray eyes flamed into

positive beauty. "It was glorious! Glorious! I was intoxicated--I could

have reeled, little as they suspected it. I wouldn't part for a second

with the certainty that I am the biggest figure in young England to-day.

I hate to sleep and forget it. If I cultivated modesty I should renounce

one of the exquisite pleasures of life. Humility is a superstition. The

man who doesn't weed it out is an ass. To be young, well-born, with

money enough, a brain instead of a mere intelligence, an essential

leader of men--Good God! Good God!" Then he subsided and blushed, jerked

up his shoulders and laughed. "Well--I never let myself go to any one

but you," he said. "And I won't inflict _you_ any longer."

IV

"I wish the old homes of England had electric lights," thought Miss

Otis, with a sigh.

There were four candles on the dressing-table, two on the mantel-shelf;

beyond the radius of their light the room was barely visible. She

carried one of the candles over to the cheval-glass and held it above

her head, close to her face, low on either side.

"I feel as if I had been put together by some unpleasant mechanical

process. It is well I am not inordinately vain, but when one puts on a

new dress for the first time--" She shrugged her shoulders hopelessly,

replaced the candle, and walked up and down the room swinging the

train--her first--of the charming gown of pale blue satin; patting the

hair coiled softly about the entire head in a line eminently becoming to

the profile, and prolonged by several little curls escaping to the neck.

She felt happy and excited, her fine almost severe face far more

girlishly alive than when she had told her story, provocatively dry, to

Flora Thangue. She directed an approving glance at the high heels of her

slippers, which, with her lofty carriage, produced the effect of

non-existing inches. She was barely five feet five, but she ranked with

tall women, her height as unchallenged as the chiselling of her profile.

"What frauds we all are!" she thought, with a humor of which she had

not vouchsafed Miss Thangue a hint. "But what is a cunningly made

slipper on a foot not so small, at the end of a body not quite long

enough, but an encouraging example of the triumph of art over nature?

Not the superiority, perhaps, but they are the best of working

partners."

She sat down and recalled the conversation with her new friend, giving

an amused little shudder. She had heard much of, and in her travels come

into contact with, the cold-blooded frankness of the English elect; with

whom it was either an instinct or a pose to manifest their careless

sense of impregnability. When pressed to give an account of herself the

dramatic possibilities of the method suddenly appealed to her,

accompanied by a mischievous desire to outdo them at their own game and

observe the effect. She had found herself as absorbed as an actress in a

new and congenial role.

"After all," she thought, "clever women make themselves over in great

part, uprooting here, adopting there, and as we have so little chance to

_be_ anything, there is a good deal to be got out of it. If one cannot

be a genius one can at least be an artist. I have never had much cause

to be as direct as stage lightning, but as I enjoyed it I suppose I may

infer that even brutal frankness is not foreign to my nature. Perhaps,

like father, I am a snob at heart and liked the sensation of a sort of

artistic alliance with the British aristocracy. Well, if I develop

snobbery I can root out that weed--or persuade myself that some other

motive is at the base of a disposition to adopt any of the

characteristics of this people: a woman can persuade herself of any

sophistry she chooses. Not for anything would I be a man. Absolutely to

accept the facts of life, even the ugly unvarnished fact itself, and at

the same time to invent one's own soul-tunes--that is to be a woman and

free!"

A printed square of card-board on her writing-table had informed her

that the dinner-hour was half-past eight. She looked at her watch. It

was five minutes to the time. Once more she peered into the glass, shook

out her skirts, then sought a door in a far and dusky corner. It opened

upon a long dimly lit corridor which led into another at right angles,

and Isabel presently found herself at the head of a staircase similar to

the one on her side of the house. Here, too, the walls were hung with

portraits and landscapes, and as far down as the eye could follow; but

after glancing over them for a moment with the recurring weariness of

one who has seen too many pictures in the hard ways of European travel,

her eyes lit and lingered on the figure of a young man who stood on the

landing, his back to her, examining, with a certain tensity, a canvas on

a level with his eyes.

"Uncle Hiram--John Elton Cecil Gwynne! What a likeness and what a

difference!"

The young Englishman's hair, pale in color and very smooth, was worn

longer than the fashion, the ends lilting. As he turned slowly at the

rustle of descending skirts, this eccentricity and his colorless skin

made him look the pale student rather than the gallant soldier, the best

fighter on the hustings that England had seen for five-and-twenty years.

As Isabel walked carefully down the slippery stair she veiled her eyes

to hide the wonder in them. She had expected personality, magnetism, as

a compensation for nature's external economies. His apparent lack of

both made him almost repellent, awakened in Isabel a sensation of

antagonism; and the cool speculation in his light gray eyes merely

accentuated his general dearth of charm. True he had height--although

his carriage was unimposing--his head was large and well-proportioned,

his nose and chin salient, but the straight heavy mouth was as

contemptuous as a Prussian officer's, and in spite of his grooming he

looked old-fashioned, absurdly like the Uncle Hiram who had been a

country lawyer and farmer, and had always worn broadcloth in the hottest

weather--except, to be sure, when he wore a linen "duster," or sat on

the veranda in his shirt-sleeves, his feet on the railing.

However, she smiled, and he smiled politely in return, advancing a few

steps to meet her. "I hope you have heard of me," she said. "Your mother

is so busy--English people are so indifferent to details--I am your

cousin, Isabel Otis--"

"Of course my mother has spoken of you. I am very glad to see you in my

house," he added, hospitably. "Shall I show you the way?"

He made no further remark as they descended the darker section of the

stair, and she could think of nothing to say to him. Nor did she

particularly care to think of anything, the American in her resenting

his lack of effort. But as they reached the door she paused abruptly.

"I forgot! Miss Thangue asked me to knock at her door--"

"You take us too seriously," he said, with a slight sneer. "Flora has

evidently forgotten you; she came down a quarter of an hour ago."

Isabel lifted her head still higher, annoyed at the angry blood that

leaped to her face. "I am afraid I am rather literal," she said, with

more hauteur than the occasion demanded. "But perhaps you will tell me

where to go. There seems to be a bewildering number of rooms. After

three years of lodgings in Europe, to say nothing of the modest

architecture of Rosewater, I feel as if astray in a maze."

"You got that off as if you were a masquerading princess," he said, with

a flicker of humor in his eyes. "Americans generally bluff the other

way." He opened the door. "We meet here in the hall. There is my mother.

You are not obliged to speak to her, you know. We are less formal in

life than in novels." With this parting shot he left her abruptly and

joined a small dark woman with a plebeian face, a sensual mouth, and

magnificent black eyes.

"The rude beast!--Julia Kaye, of course." But Isabel forgot them both in

the novelty of the scene. The square white hall was lit with wax-candles

and shaded lamps, and filled with the murmur of voices--beautiful

gowns--the sparkle of jewels. Isabel dismissed the memory of early

trials, the long years she had lived in the last three, her philosophic

resignation to the disillusions and disappointments with which her

liberty had been pitted; it was her first appearance in the world of

fashion--which she entered, after all, by a sort of divine right.

Trepidation was undeveloped in her, and when she had stood for a moment,

quite aware that her proud and singular beauty had won her instant

recognition, she walked over to her hostess.

No fresh demand was made on her courage. Lady Victoria's earlier mood of

colossal indifference had been dissipated by her son's return. She

greeted Isabel with a dazzling smile and a winning gesture.

"Isn't Jack a darling? Isn't he a dear?" she commanded. "I have put you

on his left, that you may be sure not to be bored. What hair! That is

_your_ legacy from Spain. I have the eyes, but I never had a foot of

hair. I hope you are comfortable. I expect you to remain a week. I am so

glad that Jack will be here. The place is intolerably dull without him."

Isabel, warming to such maternal ardor in a beauty whose years were

prematurely emphasized by a son as conspicuous as Elton Gwynne, summoned

a few vague words of enthusiasm. She was reproached politely for

wandering about England for two months before discovering herself to her

relatives; then, Lady Victoria's interest waning, she turned to a young

man, handsome and Saxon and orthodox, and said, casually, "Jimmy, you

will take in Miss Otis."

Dinner had already been announced. The twain, in complete ignorance of

each other's identity, walked through a long line of rooms, almost

unfurnished but for the scowling or smiling dead crowding the walls.

Isabel decided that she would be as effortless as the English and see

what came of it. The practised instinct of the American girl, added to

the excessive hospitality of the Californian, would have led her to put

her companion immediately at ease, but not only was she fond of

experimenting with racial characteristics upon her own hidden

possibilities, but she was intensely proud, and the English attitude had

stung her more than once.

"Why should I please them?" she thought, contemptuously. "Let them

please me."

Her companion betrayed no eagerness to please her; and during the first

ten minutes at table he talked to Gwynne about the late elections.

Evidently, he too had emerged from the political fray triumphant. Isabel

sat like a stately picture by Reynolds, and after her slow gaze had

travelled over the dark full-length portraits of the kings and queens

that had honored Capheaton, it dropped to the more animated faces in the

foreground. The men were good-looking, with hardly an exception; judging

by their carriage they might all have been army men, but as every word

that floated to the head of the table was political, they possibly had

followed their successful host's example and adopted an equally

intermittent career. One or two of the women were almost as handsome as

Lady Victoria, with their superb figures, their complexions of claret

and snow, that blending of high breeding and warm palpitating humanity

one never sees outside of England. But others within Isabel's range were

too haggard for beauty, although one had a Burne-Jones face and her eyes

gazed beyond the company with an expression that made her seem pure

spirit; but she too looked tired, delicate, curiously overworked.

Opposite Isabel was a tall buxom young woman of the purest Saxon type,

who was talking amiably with the man on her right, and occasionally

shaking with deep and silent laughter; her intimate casual manner, her

slight movements, her accentuation, manifestly bred in the bone.

Suddenly it was borne in upon Isabel's always sensitive consciousness

that she was the only haughty and reserved person present, and she felt

provincial and laughed frankly at herself. The lady across the table

claiming the attention of the host, she turned to her own partner. Her

black eyelashes were long, and under their protecting shadow she swept a

glance at the card above the young man's plate. It was inscribed, "Lord

Hexam." She saw her opportunity and asked, ingenuously:

"How can you be a member of the House of Commons?"

He looked up from his fish and replied, somewhat cuttingly, "By

contesting a borough and getting elected."

"But I thought a peer could not be in the House of Commons."

"He can't."

"Then how can you be?"

"I am not a peer." He looked very much annoyed.

"But you are Lord Hexam."

He answered, sulkily: "I happen to be the son of a peer."

"Are you irritated because I know nothing about you?" asked Isabel,

cruelly. "Do you suppose I have wasted my time in England reading

Burke?"

"No, there are too many sights," he replied, more cruelly still.

"They are far more interesting than most of the people I have met." Then

she changed her tactics and smiled upon him; and when she smiled she

showed a dimple hardly larger than a pin's head at one corner of her

flexible mouth. For the first time he looked under her eyelashes into

the odd blue eyes, with their dilated pupils and black rim edging the

light iris. He suddenly realized that she was beautiful, in spite of the

three little black moles on her face--he detested moles--and smiled in

return.

"I am afraid I was rude. But I am really shy, and you quite took it out

of me. I am more afraid of the American girl than of anything on earth."

"How did you know I was an American?"

"By your accent." He laughed good-naturedly. "Now I am even with you."

"Well, you are. Californians pride themselves upon having no accent."

"Oh, it is not nearly so bad as some. But it is there all the same. Not

a twang nor a drawl, but--well--every country has its unmistakable

stamp."

"Well, I have no desire to be taken for anything but an American," she

said, defiantly. "A Californian, that is. After all, we are quite

different. But we do have an appalling variety of accents in the United

States. I have lived abroad long enough to discover that. When I am an

old maid I am going to mount the platform and preach the training of the

voice in childhood. I have taken a violent dislike to more than one

clever American man merely because he trailed his voice through his

nose. I don't mind our vices being criticised as much as our crudities."

"I never before heard an American girl make a remark that indicated the

least interest in her country--even when--pardon me--they brag. They

generally give the impression that they don't even know who happens to

be the President of the moment. Somehow, you look as if you might."

"I was brought up by a man, and my uncle was a great politician in a

small way. That is to say he was identified with country politics only,

but he and my father were everlastingly discussing the national issues.

Of course you have only met girls from the great cities, where the men

are too busy making money to take any interest in public affairs. The

women rarely hear them mentioned, practically forget there are such

affairs--except on the Fourth of July, which they resent as a personal

grievance. I have met scores of them in Europe. To know anything of

politics they regard as the height of bad form."

"Sometimes I wish that our women would let them alone for a while. That

is my sister over there," indicating the lady with the Burne-Jones face.

"She has worn herself to a shadow working for her husband, who is in the

House, and she is heart and soul in politics--which she regards as a

sort of divine mission. She is on several committees, is far more useful

to her husband than his secretary, for she has the gift of style--and no

one would accuse Rex of that--and during an election she never rests.

Besides which, of course she has her little family, the usual number of

establishments to look after, and great social pressure. I always

maintain that our women are of immense service to us, but many of them

are physically unfit. I expect to see my sister go to pieces any day,

and as she is little short of an angel it worries me."

"She does look angelic," said Isabel, sympathetically. "Is that what is

the matter with the rest of them?--the thin ones, I mean?"

"Generally speaking. The thinnest is my cousin. I went in for a cup of

tea a week or two before the end of last session. There were several of

us about the tea-table when a footman entered and muttered something to

her, and with a vague word of apology she left the room and did not

return for half an hour. I thought the baby must be dying, and was about

to ring, when she reappeared and remarked that she had been sitting at

the telephone listening to a paper her husband had just finished on one

of the questions before the House. Some of them stand it better." He

indicated a fair beautiful creature with a determined profile and deep

womanly figure. "There is Mrs. Sefton, for instance. She presides at

committee meetings--she is great on colonial politics--for three or four

hours at a time, and always sails out as fresh as a rose; but she has

buried her husband and entertains when and whom she chooses. Lady

Cecilia opposite understands politics as well as any woman in England,

but does not go in for them--Spence isn't in the House; that may account

for it!"

"Your fashionable women do not in the least resemble ours," said Isabel,

meditatively. "They are far more like the women of our small towns."

"What!"

"It sounds paradoxical, but it is more than half true. Say two-thirds;

the other third is all in favor of your women, for obvious reasons. But

those I speak of, the best women of every small town, are constantly

active in civic affairs. Most of the sanitary improvements and the

educational, all schemes for parks and better streets, come from them.

There is no village too small to have its 'Woman's Improvement Club.'

And it is the women that have saved all the historical buildings in the

country from destruction."

"I thought they went in for Browning Societies."

"Doubtless you would scorn really to know anything of American humor.

Perhaps our comic papers have never heard of the Improvement Clubs, or

find nothing in them that is humorous. Not that I would decry the

Browning Clubs, nor any literary clubs, however crude. It is all in the

line of progress. 'Culture' is a tempting morsel for the jokemaker, but

as an alternative for dull domesticity and the vulgar inanities of

gossip it is not to be despised."

"By Jove, you are right," said Hexam, not without warmth.

"Is my fair cousin converting you to something?" asked the host. His

voice had been little heard, and he looked sulky.

"Cousin?"

"Yes, he is my cousin," said Isabel, with the accent of resignation.

Hexam laughed. Gwynne looked as if the grace of humor had been left out

of him. Isabel, innocent and impassive, turned her eyelashes upon her

partner. "I was quite wild to meet my cousin," she went on, in the

toneless voice that contrasted so effectively with her occasional

extravagance of speech; "and now I find him the precise image of my

uncle Hiram, who never spoke to me except to say: 'Little girls should

be seen and not heard,' or 'Run off to bed now, little one.'"

Without repitching her voice she yet infused it with a patronizing

masculinity that once more startled Hexam into laughter, and caused a

silent convulsion in the massive frame of Lady Cecilia Spence.

"She knows that was a bit of vengeance," thought Isabel. "But of course,

manlike, he'll never suspect it." She turned her deep thoughtful gaze

full upon her cousin. His eyes were glittering under their heavy lids.

He replied, suavely:

"I hope you will find us more polite--if less picturesque. I cannot

flatter myself that my likeness to your uncle Hiram extends that far.

'Precise image'--is not that perhaps a bit of national exaggeration?"

"Well, I take that back," said Isabel, sweetly. "But you really might be

his son instead of his second cousin."

"Perhaps that accounts for a good many things," said Lady Cecilia. "You

know, Jack, I have always said there was something exotic about you. You

are much too energetic and progressive for this settled old country. If

you had been born in America I suppose you would have been president at

the earliest moment the constitution permitted."

He hesitated a moment, then delivered himself of a bombshell. "I was

born in America," he said.

His eyes moved slowly from one stupefied face to another. "As I left at

the age of five weeks I can hardly claim that the incident left an

indelible impress. But the fact remains that I should be eligible for

the presidency if I chose to become an American citizen."

Isabel looked at her relative with an accession of interest; he had

suddenly ceased to be an alien, become in a measure a personal

possession. "Come over and try it," she said, impulsively. "_There_ is a

career worth while! A young country as full of promise as of faults!

Think of the variousness of achievement! England's history is made. If

you are all they claim, you might really make history in the United

States. If I only had a brother--" Her eyes were flashing for the first

time. "However--they say you love the fight. It is far more difficult to

become a president of the United States than a prime-minister of

England, for with us family influence counts for nothing."

"I am afraid I have not the qualities that do count. To be as frank as

yourself--I don't think I could stand your politics."

"But think of the excitement of really sounding your capacities!"

Impersonality was an achievement with Isabel and she could always

command it. "You can never do that here, no matter how brilliant your

success. There must always be the question of how far you would have

gone without your family, and friends of equal power. The ugliest lesson

of life is its snobbishness. Even when the herd can expect no return, a

blind instinct--doubtless an inheritance from the days when there were

but two classes--drives it to beat the drums for the socially elect. We

have enough of that in America, heaven knows, but the best thing that

can be said of American politics is that they are free of it. Besides,

if our politics are bad, so much the better for you. You might do for

the United States what your English great-grandfather helped to do for

this country in 1832. You might be another 'Great Revolutioner,' like

your still more illustrious ancestor, Sam Adams. You'll never, never

have such an opportunity to become a great historical figure over here,

for English dissatisfaction hardly counts, and in the United States

there are increasing millions that demand reform, a closer approach to

the ideal republic promised by their ancestors, and the man for the

hour."

The angry glitter had left his eyes and he was looking at her with

interest and curiosity. He respected her courage and obvious power to

rise above the personal attitude of her sex.

"I dislike intensely many things in your country," he said, slowly; "but

I will confess that it interests me greatly. If it has failed in some of

its original ideals it has at least continued to be a republic for more

than a century; and when one considers its enormous size and conflicting

elements--for I suppose you will not claim that you are a homogeneous

race--that is very inspiring! It makes one believe that fundamentally

the country must be sound--that unswerving fidelity to an ideal. It is a

great thing! a stupendous thing! I wish I knew that I should live to

see England, all Europe, a republic. There is no other state fit for

self-respecting men--that voice in the selection of their own rulers."

"By Jove, Jack!" cried Lord Hexam. "I never heard you go as far as that

before."

"Possibly you never will again. I have no desire to rank with those

brilliant failures that are born before their time, and no intention of

wasting my energies on the unattainable. Moreover, radicals and

socialists per se are merely a nuisance. The Liberal party is the only

choice in England to-day, and when I get it at my back, I can, at least,

after I have led it to a stronger position, fight for the soundest of

the extremist dogmas, as well as for the reorganization of the House of

Peers. Hereditary legislation in the twentieth century and the most

civilized country in the world! Why not an hereditary army and navy?

Russia has few greater anachronisms. And when one thinks of the careers

it has ruined! Look at Barnstaple."

The two men plunged into discussion, and Isabel, her eyes expressing a

polite interest, studied the face of her cousin. She appreciated for the

first time something of its power. A brief illumination of his eyes had

betrayed the soul of the idealist; a passion that in a less sound mind

might result in fanaticism. He was talking with none of the fiery

enthusiasm that made him so irresistible a public speaker, but his

negative suggestion of vitality, of mature thought, his very lack of

every-day magnetism, fascinated her; not the woman, but the acute,

receptive, and antagonistic intelligence. As he sat there talking, with

hardly a change of expression in his voice or on his cold face, faintly

sneering, he seemed to be holding his powers in solution; to have

resolved them for the time being into their elements, that they might

rest and recuperate. While no doubt in first-rate physical condition, he

looked as if he had not a red corpuscle in his body, and this very

contrast to the warm full-blooded people surrounding him gave him a

distinction of his own, the distinction of pure brain independent of

those auxiliaries that few public men have been able to dispense with.

It was obvious that he was too self-centred, too haughtily indifferent,

or too spoilt, to make any effort in private life to charm or bewilder;

when he vanquished from the platform it was by the awakened rush of the

forces within him; and this very indifference, this contemptuous

knowledge of his mighty reserves, this serene faith in his star,

invested his personal unattractiveness with a formidable significance.

Isabel's imagination dilated him into a disembodied intellect surrounded

by mere statues of human flesh. As she left the dining-room the illusion

vanished. She liked him less than ever, nevertheless wished that he were

her brother and the rising star in American politics.

V

As the women entered a large room on the opposite side of the central

hall, where coffee was to be served, Flora Thangue laid her hand

deprecatingly on Isabel's arm. "I was so sorry not to be able to wait

for you," she said. "But I had a distracted note from Vicky at eight

asking me to dress as quickly as I could and see if the cards on the

table were all right: the new butler is rather a muff, and such a

martinet the footmen dare not interfere. I was delighted to see that

Jack had taken charge of you. What do you think of our infant prodigy?"

"I have had little chance to think anything," said Isabel, evasively.

"Is he the typical Englishman--I mean apart from his peculiar gifts?"

"Only in certain qualities. You see he has Celtic blood in him: of

course the Gwynnes had their origin in Wales; and then he is one-fourth

American, isn't he? I can't say how far that inheritance has influenced

his character, but there is no doubt about the Celtic. Outwardly he is

even more impassive than the usual Oxford product, and if he had been

born a generation earlier he would have had all sorts of affectations.

But affectation, thank heaven, is out of date. We wouldn't tolerate a

Grandcourt five minutes. Whom should you like to talk to? You will have

enough of me."

"I am sure there is no one I shall like half so well," said Isabel,

truthfully; and Flora loved her for not being gracious. "I think I

should like to know Mrs. Kaye."

"If you ever do, please give me the benefit of your investigations.

There are as many opinions of her as there are of cats. Vicky believes

in her and I don't. Jack is in love with her--with certain of his Celtic

instincts gone wrong."

She led Isabel over to Mrs. Kaye, who sat alone on a small sofa, sipping

her coffee and absently puffing at a cigarette. She was exquisitely

dressed and jewelled, and her little figure was round and symmetrical;

but nothing could obscure the ignoble modelling of her face. She might

have been misunderstood for a housemaid masquerading had it not been for

an air of assured power, a repose as monumental as that of a Chinese

joss.

She had cultivated a still radiance of expression which, when she

thought it worth her while, broke into a tender or brilliant smile;

although even then her large, ripe mouth retained a hint of the

austerity her strong will had imposed upon it--to the more complete

undoing of the masculine host. She smiled graciously as Miss Thangue

murmured the introduction and moved away, but did not offer the other

half of the sofa, and Isabel fetched a chair.

"You are the American cousin, of course," she said, with a slight lisp.

"We were all talking about you down at our end of the table, but I could

not see you until just now. I long to go to America, your novels

interest me so much. But one is always so busy--one never gets time for

the Atlantic. Lady Victoria says you come from that wonderful country,

California, but of course you know New York and Newport still better.

All Americans do."

"I have never seen Newport, and passed exactly a week in New York before

sailing."

Mrs. Kaye's expressive eyes, which had dwelt on Isabel with flattering

attention, fell to the tip of her cigarette. "No? I thought that all

smart Americans came from that sacred precinct."

"I am not in the least smart. I don't really _know_ half a dozen people

in America outside of the county in which I have spent the greater part

of my life--not even in San Francisco, where I was born." Isabel held

her cigarette poised in one slender hand, letting her eyes fall

deliberately on the broad back and flat nails of the exquisitely kept

section on Mrs. Kaye's lap. "So far, in my small social ventures I have

felt the necessity of little beyond good manners and a small independent

income. This is my first excursion into the great world, and of course

my cousin is too secure in her position to care whether I am smart or

not. Miss Thangue, the only other woman I have talked with, is far too

amiable and well-bred. Am I to understand that I shall be tried by New

York measurements and found wanting?"

"Oh no!" Mrs. Kaye's bright color had darkened. "On the contrary, the

English are always rather amused at American distinctions. It only

happens that all my friends are New-Yorkers."

She was a very clever woman, for snobbery had blunted and demoralized

only one small chamber of her brain, and she had as comprehensive a

knowledge of the world as any woman in it. Nevertheless, as her powerful

magnetic eyes met the ingenuous orbs opposite, she was unable to

determine whether the barbed words, quivering in a sore spot, had been

uttered in innocence or intent. "Of course one doesn't meet so many

Americans, after all. Naturally, the New-Yorkers bring the best

letters." She paused a moment as if ruminating, then delivered herself

of an epigram: "New York is the great American invention for separating

the wheat from the tares."

"Indeed!" Isabel was too surprised to strike back.

"It is well known that it is one of the most exclusive social bodies in

the world. You have far less difficulty over here."

"That may be merely owing to the fear that affects all new social

bodies. I have the honor to know the leader of society in St. Peter--a

town of ten thousand inhabitants near my own--and she is frightfully

exclusive. She is so afraid of knowing the wrong sort of people that she

is barely on nodding terms with the several thousand new-comers that

have added to the wealth and importance of the town during the last ten

years. Consequently, her circle is as dull as an Anglo-Saxon Sunday. I

fancy the same may be said of New York, for its fashionable set is not

large and its interests are far from various. From all I have heard,

London society alone is perennially interesting, and the reason is,

that, absolutely secure, it keeps itself from staleness by constantly

refreshing its veins with new blood, exclusive only against

offensiveness. Of course you are a daughter of a duke or something," she

added, wickedly. "Everybody here seems to be. Don't you feel that your

ancestors have given you the right to know whom you please?--instead of

eternally plugging the holes in the dike."

In spite of her sharpened wits, Mrs. Kaye smiled radiantly into Isabel's

guileless eyes. "I am not the daughter of a duke; I wish I were!" she

exclaimed, with a fair assumption of aristocratic frankness. "But your

point is quite correct." Again she appeared to ruminate; then added:

"The British aristocracy is to society what God is to the

world--all-sufficient, all-merciful, all-powerful."

"And she would sacrifice Him and all his archangels to an epigram,"

thought Isabel, who was somewhat shocked. "How fearfully clever you

are!" she murmured. "Do you think in epigrams?"

"Epigrams? Have I made one? I wish I could. They are immensely the

fashion."

"I should think you might have set it--"

She did not finish her sentence, for the ear to which it was addressed

suddenly closed. Lady Cecilia Spence had sauntered up, and Mrs. Kaye

hastily made room for her on the sofa, turning a shoulder upon Isabel. A

faint change, as by the agitation of depths on the far surface of

waters, rippled her features, and Isabel, summoning the impersonal

attitude, watched her curiously. It was her first experience of the snob

in a grandiose setting, but it was the type that had aroused her most

impassioned inward protest all her life: the smallest circles have their

snobs, and, like all the unchosen of mammon, she had had her corroding

experiences. But her high spirit resented the power of the baser

influences, and, with her intellect, commanded her to accept the world

with philosophy and the unsheathed weapon of self-respect. In the

present stage of the world's development it was to be expected that the

pettier characteristics of human nature would predominate; and perhaps

the intellectually exclusive would not have it otherwise.

Mrs. Kaye, polite tolerance giving place to the accent of intimacy,

began: "Oh, Lady Cecilia, have you heard--" and plunged into a piece of

gossip, no doubt of absorbing interest to those that knew the

contributory circumstances and the surnames of the actors, but to the

uninitiated as puzzling as success. Lady Cecilia's eyes twinkled

appreciatively, and her wells of laughter bubbled close to the surface.

Isabel, completely ignored, waited until the story was finished, and

then made a deliberate move.

"How interesting!" she exclaimed. "Won't you tell me the names of the

people?"

Mrs. Kaye, without turning her head, murmured something indistinctly,

and lit another cigarette. "Won't you have a light, Lady Cecilia?" she

asked.

"Please give me one," said Isabel, sweetly. She reached out and took the

cigarette from Mrs. Kaye's faintly resisting hand. "Thank you. I am lazy

about looking for matches. Do you smoke a lot?"

But Mrs. Kaye, irritated, or having reached the conclusion that the

newcomer was not in the very least worth while, said with soft fervor to

her who was: "How delightful that dear Jack was returned! Of course you

are as interested in his career as the rest of us."

"I should be a good deal more so if his mother had turned him across her

knee a little oftener--or if I could shake him myself occasionally."

Isabel, satisfied, more amazed than ever at the infantile ingenuousness

of the snob, rose, and was about to turn away when she met Lady

Cecilia's eyes. They were full of amusement, and there was no mistaking

its purport. In a flash Isabel had responded with a challenge of appeal,

which that accomplished dame was quick to understand.

"Please don't go," she said. "I came over here to talk to you. We are

all so interested in the idea that Vicky is half an American--we had

quite forgotten it. Did you ever see any one look less as if she had

American cousins than Vicky? She might easily have a whole tribe of

Spanish ones."

"Well, she has, in a way." And in response to many questions Isabel

found herself relating the story of Rezanov and Concha Argueello, while

Mrs. Kaye, whatever may have been her sensations, rose with an absent

smile and composedly transferred herself to an equally distinguished

neighborhood.

"I wonder if she has ever tried to condense rudeness into an epigram,"

said Isabel viciously, pausing in her narrative.

Lady Cecilia shook expressively. "At least she has not made an art of

it," she said. "They never do."

VI