Julia, when she reached the upper corridor, almost ran into the duke,

but he was near-sighted, used to mice, and she cowered behind an armored

knight unsuspected. When she finally closed her own door behind her, she

found that all inclination to sleep had fled and that she was more

excited than while the immediate centre of a love storm. She sat by the

window for hours, thinking hard, and feeling several years older. Quite

honest once more, now that she was safe behind a locked door, she

examined her new problem on every side. It was quite possible, she

confessed, that if she had loved Nigel, even a bit, she might have

consented to his program, for youth has its rights; she had not been

consulted in her marriage, she was more or less a prisoner, with no

prospect of even youthful companionship, and the idea of being a duchess

did not interest her at all. Of the meaning of sin she had but the

vaguest idea.

But of loyalty and honor she had a very distinct idea. Instinct and

reason told her that she never would love Nigel; otherwise, with every

provocation, she must have loved him long since. Therefore would it be

unfair to play with him. She would far rather be married to him than to

France, for he was young and clever and charming, but even were she free

now, she would not marry him. Therefore was it her duty to dismiss and

cure him as quickly as possible, not ruin his youth by keeping him

dangling, after what she knew to be the habit of many women. Also, for

the first time, she felt really drawn to her husband, so unconscious of

her naughty adventure. After all, she was his, he adored her, and he

deserved every reparation in her power. Who could tell?—she might love

him. Love appeared to be in the nature of a mighty river at spring

flood; no doubt it ingulfed everything in its way. She had leaped to one

side to-night, but her husband—yes, it was conceivable that she might

stand still and await the flood without making faces.

She felt extremely satisfied and virtuous as she lit her candle and

wrote a kind but uncompromising letter to Nigel, taking back her promise

to meet him on the morrow, and warning him that if he wrote to her she

should give his letters to her husband. It was not in her to do anything

of the sort, but she had the gift of a fine straightforward forcible

style, and her letter so enraged Nigel that he left England as quickly

as steam could take him, cursing her and all women.

So ended their first chapter.

IX

THE curtain had fallen on the first act of “La Traviata,” and Ishbel,

for once alone in the box with her husband, glanced idly over the

imposing tiers of Covent Garden. Royalty was present, the smart

peeresses were out in full force and wore their usual brave display of

tiaras and miscellaneous jewels, inherited and otherwise, so that the

horseshoe glittered like Aladdin’s palace. There was also a jeweller’s

window in the stalls, and altogether it was a representative night in

the beginning of the season.

Nevertheless, Ishbel became suddenly and acutely aware that she had on

more jewels than any woman in the house. Not only was there an all-round

and almost unbearably heavy tiara on her small head, nearly a foot high

and composed of diamonds and emeralds as large as plums, but she wore a

rope of diamonds that reached far below her knees, a necklace of five

rows of pearls as big as her husband’s thumb nails, and linked with

emeralds and diamonds, a sunburst of diamonds that looked like a

waterfall, and equally priceless gems cutting into the flesh of her

tender shoulders where they clasped the only visible portion of her

raiment. Ishbel was justly proud of her magnificent collection of

jewels, but, being a young woman of unerring good taste, was in the

habit of wearing a few at a time. Several hours earlier, however, her

husband, grown jealous of the prosiliency of the New South African

millionnaires, had come home with the rope and commanded her to put on

every jewel she possessed for the opera that night, and the first great

ball of the season to follow. As she had surveyed herself in her long

mirror it had occurred to her that she looked like a begum, but when she

had called her husband’s attention to the fact, and suggested some

modification in her display of converted capital, he had replied curtly

that he had spent a quarter of his fortune for the public to look at on

her equally ornamental self, and that when he wished it displayed in

toto, displayed it should be. That is the way for a man to talk to his

wife when he means to be obeyed; and when the masterful and successful

Mr. Jones delivered his ultimatums, few that had aught to do with him

were so hardy as to continue the argument.

Ishbel had trained herself to take him humorously, to believe him the

most generous of men because he had proved quite amenable to the family

plan of marrying off her sisters (they were handsome and an additional

excuse for entertaining), and because he never alluded to her enormous

bills or forgot to hand her a check for pin-money every quarter. She had

rewarded him with thanks couched in an endless variety of terms and

glances, even caresses when he demanded them. When they were alone at

table (as seldom as she could manage) she even coquetted with him,

giving him the full play of her piquant eyes and sweet smile, and

talking in her brightest manner, to conceal from himself how hopeless he

was in conversation. She even pitied him sometimes; for, in spite of his

riches, his interests in the City, and the great position in society

that she had given him, he seemed to her a lonely being, and she would

have loved him if she could.

To-night, however, his words had rankled. They had echoed during the

drive to the opera-house, stirring her most amiable of minds to a vague

anger; and now, quite suddenly, she was filled with an intense

mortification and resentment. Every intelligent being that has made a

signal mistake in his life’s order has some sudden moment of awakening,

of vision. The phrase “kept wife” had not yet arrived in literature, but

it rose in Ishbel’s mind as she glanced from her white slender body,

weary in its glittering armor, to the big heavy man opposite, sitting

with a hand on either knee, his hard bright little eyes surveying her

with triumphant approval. She was his property; he owned her, as he

owned his house in Park Lane, the castle he had recently bought from a

peer terrified by the remodelling of the death duties, his princely

equipages, the noisy jewels on her person. After all, she had not a

penny of her own, was as poor as when she had been one of fourteen

hopeless sisters in Ireland; for he had carefully abstained from

settlements, that she might feel her dependence, thank him periodically

for his splendid checks. Her father had been in no position to insist

upon settlements, but, had he been, would she be any better off

ethically than now? They would have been but another present from the

man who had bought her as he had bought his other famous possessions. If

she had children, they would be his, not hers, and there was nothing he

could not compel her to do, and be upheld by the laws of his country,

unless he both beat her and kept a mistress.

She suddenly loathed him. That she had given him value received made her

loathe him, and herself, the more. She shrank until she expected to hear

her jewels rattle together, then raised her eyes again and flashed them

about the house. She picked out twenty women in that glance who had sold

their beauty for what their jewels represented, although, for the most

part, they had the saving grace to be owned by gentlemen. But were they

so much better off? Jones, at least, was now inoffensive in his manners

and speech. Many gentlemen she knew were not, and one duke had a habit

of catching her by the arm and leering into her crimsoning ear a horrid

story. But that was not the point. What was the point? That women who

married men for jewels and not for love were no better than the women of

the street? Most women would have stopped there. It is a sentimental

form of reasoning, eminently satisfactory to many women, and to some

male novelists. But Ishbel had been born with a clear logical brain in

which the fatal gift of humor was seldom dormant, and of late this brain

had shown symptoms of impatience at neglect, muttered vague demands for

recognition. Youth, a natural love of gayety, pleasure, splendor,

reigning as a beauty, a laudable desire to help one’s family,—all very

well—but—

Ishbel’s inner vision pierced straight down to the root (ornamentally

overlaid) of the whole matter. The portionless woman, whether there was

love between herself and her husband or not, was a property, a subject,

an annex, nothing more, not even if she bore him children. Indeed, in

the latter case she but proved the old contention that in bearing

children she fulfilled her only mission on earth.

Ishbel had heard, as one hears of all civilized activities, of Woman’s

Suffrage; this, too, passed in review before that search-light in her

mind, and she wondered if the women asking for it dared to do so unless

economically independent. She and Bridgit, when resting on their labors

two years before,—a breathing spell in the grouse season,—had amused

themselves in the library tracing the course of woman during those

periods of the world’s history when she had been famous for her innings;

and both had been struck by the fact that when nations were at peace and

man enjoyed prosperity and comparative leisure, woman’s eminence and

apparent freedom had been but her lord’s opportunity to display his

riches and gratify the non-military side of his vanity. Only in a small

minority of cases had this eminence and freedom been the result of

self-support, inherited wealth, genius, or dynastic authority: the vast

majority had been toys, jewel-laden henchwomen; even the great

courtesans had been dependent upon their youth and charm and the caprice

of man.

* * * * *

No wonder so few women had left an impress on history. How could any

brain, even if endowed with true genius, reach the highest order of

development while the character remained flaccid in its willing

dependence upon the reigning sex? And man had despised woman throughout

the ages, even when most enslaved by her, knowing that on him depended

her very existence. He had the physical strength to wring her neck, and

the legal backing to treat her as partner or servant, whichever he found

agreeable or convenient. She and Bridgit had discussed this phenomenon

philosophically but impersonally, it being understood that when they did

give their brains exercise, it should not interfere with their youthful

enjoyment of life; nor should the exercise continue long enough to

become a habit; time enough for that sort of thing when one had turned

thirty. But it occurred to Ishbel in these moments of painful clarity.

She had not taken the least interest in Woman’s Suffrage, a movement

under a cloud at this time, but she had a sudden and poignant desire to

be independent, and a simultaneous conviction that no woman was worthy

of anything better than being one of man’s miscellaneous properties

until she were. What right had women, supported by men, living on their

exertions or fortunes, displayed or used at their pleasure, tricking

them by a thousand ingenious devices to gain their ends, to be regarded

as equals, political or otherwise? The most democratic of woman

employers, unless a faddist, did not regard her employees, particularly

her servants, as equals; and yet they, at least, worked for their bread,

were economically independent, could throw up their situations without

scandal. Ishbel had twenty-three servants in her ugly Park Lane mansion,

and in the bitterness of her humiliation she felt herself the inferior

of the scullery maid. She opened her eyes wide, staring out upon the

world through the glittering curtain before her. What an extraordinary

world it was! How silly! How uncivilized! How incomplete! What might not

women attain with complete self-respect, and how utterly hopeless was

their case without it!

“What are you thinking about?” asked Mr. Jones, curiously. He had been

watching her for some moments.

“That I ache with all these ridiculous jewels.” Ishbel stood up and

walked deliberately to the back of the box. “I feel as if I were wearing

an old-fashioned crystal chandelier. Will you kindly put my cloak on?”

Jones had risen (being well trained in the small courtesies), but he

showed no intention of following her.

“Certainly not,” he said peremptorily. “Sit down. I wish you to remain

here until it is time to go to the duchess’s ball—”

“I’m not going to the duchess’s ball. I’m going home.”

He stared at her, his long straight mouth opening slightly, and his

heavy underjaw twitching. Like many millionnaires, self-made, he looked

like a retired prize-fighter, and for the moment he felt as old gods of

the ring must feel when brushed contemptuously aside by arrogant youth.

This was the first time his wife had shown the slightest hint of

rebellion, deviated from a sweetness and tact that was without either

condescension from her lofty birth, or servility to his wealth. But

there was neither sweetness nor tact in her small pinched face. Her

mouth was as compressed as his own could be, and the expression of her

eyes frightened him.

“What on earth’s the matter with you?” he asked roughly.

“I tell you I don’t like the idea of looking like an idol, a chandelier,

a begum, what you will; of having on more jewels than any woman in the

house; of looking nouveau riche, if you will have it. And I am tired and

am going home to bed. You can come or not, as you like.”

She put on her cloak. Jones, swearing under his breath, but helpless,

caught up his own coat and hat and followed her out of the house. But

although he stormed, protested, even condescended to beg, all the way

home, she would not utter another word, and when she reached her room,

locked the door behind her.

X

THE next morning she sought Bridgit, having ascertained by telephone

that her friend was alone. The Hon. Mrs. Herbert, although “masculine”

only in so far as Nature had endowed her with a strong positive mind and

character, physical and mental courage, and a disdain of all pettiness

(the hypothetical masculine ideal), thought boudoirs silly, and called

her personal room in South Audley Street a den. Not that it in the least

resembled a man’s den. It was a long and narrow room on the first floor

at the back of the house, and furnished with deep chairs and sofas

covered with flowered chintzes, and several good pieces of Sheraton. She

was known for her fine collection of remarque etchings, and the best of

them were in this room. The large table was set out with reviews and new

books, which she bought on principle, although she found time for little

more than a glance at their contents. Her cigarette-box was of

elaborately chased silver. Good a sportswoman as she was, she was not in

the least “sporty,” being too well balanced and well bred to assume a

pose of any sort. She was a woman of the world with many tastes, who was

destined to have a good many more.

When Ishbel entered, she was walking up and down, her hands clasped

behind her, her heavy black brows drawn above the brooding darkness

below. She, too, was in an unenviable frame of mind.

Her brows relaxed as she saw Ishbel. “What on earth is the matter?” she

exclaimed.

Ishbel, who had not slept but was quite calm, sat down and told her

story.

“I don’t suppose you quite understand how I feel,” she concluded; “for

you have always had your own fortune, have never even been dependent on

your father. But of one thing I am positive: if you found yourself in my

position, you would feel exactly as I do. So I have come to you to talk

it out.”

“Of course I understand.” Bridgit turned her back and walked to the end

of the room. She longed to add: “It is quite as humiliating to keep a

husband as to be kept by one; rather worse, as tradition and instincts

don’t sanction it.” But there are some things that cannot be said, save,

indeed, through the offices of the pineal gland; and as Bridgit, on her

return march, paused and looked down upon Ishbel, standing in an

attitude of rigid defiance, with quivering, nostrils and fierce

half-closed eyes, possibly her friend received a telepathic flash, for

she exclaimed impulsively:—

“You are in trouble, too. What is it?”

“Trouble is a fine general term for my ailment. I’m merely disgusted,

dissatisfied—on general principles. Possibly it’s the effect of reading

Nigel’s book.”

“I haven’t had time to read it, but I’m so happy it has created a

_furore_, and hope he’ll come back to be lionized. Odd he should write

about the slums.”

“Not at all. The slums are always being discovered by bright young men,

who, with the true ardor of the explorer, proceed to enlighten the

world. Nigel—the story’s not up to much—but he has the genius of

expression, and, having made the amazing discovery of poverty,

communicates his own amazement that it should have continued to exist in

civilized countries up to the eve of the twentieth century—and his

horror at its forms. Some of his scenes are quite awfully vivid. But

he’s no sentimentalist; he doesn’t call for more charities; he doesn’t

even pity the poor; he despises them as they deserve to be despised for

being poor, for their asininity in permitting and enduring. But he

demands in their name, since the best of them are wholly incompetent as

thinkers, that the educated shall favor a form of Socialism which shall

not only provide remunerative employment for them, but compel them to

work—grinding the idle, the worthless, the vicious to the wall, and

training the new generation to annihilate poverty. Great heaven! What a

disgrace it is—that poverty—to the individual, to the world, to the

poor, to the rich. I never realized it until I read that book. Other

‘discoverers’ have put my back up. But Nigel is one of us; and when he

sees it—and what a clear vision he has—”

“How splendid!” cried Ishbel, also forgetting her own trouble for the

moment. “And to be able to write like that will help him to forget

Julia—must make all personal affairs seem insignificant. Would that we

all had such a solace!”

“Solace! We are both strong enough to scorn the word. But having been

awakened, I should have no excuse if I went to sleep again. Nor you. I

haven’t made up my mind what I’ll do yet, merely that I’ll do something.

I’m sick of society. It’s a bally grind. Five years of it are enough for

any woman with brains instead of porridge in her skull. I’m glad you’ve

had a shock about the same time—should have administered it if you

hadn’t. Of course I shall continue to hunt, and keep house for Geoffrey,

and watch over my child, but all that uses up about one-tenth of my

energies, and no more. What I’ll do, I don’t know. I’m floundering.

Lovers are no solution for me. They’re démodés, anyhow. I’m after some

big solution both elemental and progressive. Of course I shall begin

with politics—by studying our problems on all sides, I mean, not having

hysterics over the party claptrap of the moment. That and a hard course

in German literature will tone my mind up. It’s all run to seed. The

rest will come in due course. Tell me what you propose to do. But of

course you’ve had no time to decide.”

“Oh, but I have. I’m going to open a milliner shop.”

“What?” Mrs. Herbert sat down.

“You may think me vain, but I _know_ that I can trim hats better than

any woman in London.”

“Yes—of course. But Mr. Jones?”

“I think I can make him consent—advance me the money—by persuading him

that it is a new fad with the aristocracy—I’ll point out to him several

titles over shops in Bond Street.”

“You have an Irish imagination. He won’t hear of it.”

“I’m sure I can talk him over—”

“Besides, it isn’t fair. It will make no end of talk, and him

ridiculous. If you go in for independence—and do, by all means—don’t

begin your sex emancipation with the sex methods of second-rate women.

Men are supposed to be direct, straightforward, above the petty wiles to

which women have been compelled to resort since man owned them. They are

not, but, being the ruling sex, have forced the world to accept them at

their own estimate. Besides, they find the standard convenient. That it

is a worthy standard, no one will dispute. At least if we women cannot

be wholly truthful, we need not be greater liars than they are. And we

can score a point by adopting the same standard. Tell Mr. Jones that you

have decided upon independence, that if he doesn’t put up the money, I

will; but don’t throw dust in his eyes—I doubt if you could, anyhow.”

“Would you really?”

“Of course I would. It would be great fun. But what is the rest of your

program? Do you propose to leave him? To cook his social goose?”

“No, he has been too generous, whatever his motives. No girl has ever

had a better time, and nothing can alter the fact that he has rescued my

family from poverty. Even if he cut both daddy and myself off his

pay-roll, Aleece and Hermione and Shelah are rich enough to take care of

the rest. I have done my duty by the family! No, I am quite willing to

occupy a room in his house, go to the opera with him, even to such

social affairs as I have time and strength for—I really intend to work,

mind you, and to start in rather a small way, that I may pay back what I

borrow the sooner.”

“How you have thought it all out! I wish I had something definite in

sight. I despise the women that merely fill in time with intellectual

pursuits, and I’ll be hanged if I take to settlement work—the last

resource of the novelist who wants to make his elevated heroine ‘do

something.’ I must find my particular ability and exercise it. To work

with you actively in the shop would be a mere subterfuge, as I don’t

need money. But never mind me—When are you going to speak to Mr.

Jones?”

“This afternoon. I wanted to talk it out with you first. We Irish _are_

extravagant. I was afraid I might have got off my base a bit.”

“The world will think you mad, of course. But that only proves how sane

you are. I wish I could get together about a hundred women, prominent

socially—merely because society women are supposed to be all

frivolous—to set a pace. I assume that the average woman in any class

is a fool, but there is no reason why she should remain one; and the

exceptional women, of whom there must be thousands, only lack courage,

initiative, a leader. By the way, what do you hear of Julia? I haven’t

had a letter for two months.”

“They are to remain at Bosquith until the dissolution of Parliament,

nursing their constituency. She is doing the lady-of-the-manor act,

visiting among the poor, petting babies, and all the rest of it—but

putting in most of her time with her beloved books. She rarely mentions

France’s name.”

“Never to me. But I know from one of my aunts—Peg—that he’s too

occupied getting back his health and pleasing the duke to drink or let

his temper go. No doubt he’s making a very decent husband. It may last.

But whether it does or not, I’m not going to let Julia go. She’s made of

uncommon stuff and must become one of us.”

XI

IT was with some trepidation that Ishbel sought her husband in the

library a few hours later, and, in spite of her resolve to “be square,”

could not resist assuming her most ingratiating manner. Her eyes were

full of witchery, her kissable mouth wore its most provocative curves.

Anything less like an emancipated wife or a prospective business woman

never rose upon man’s haunted imagination; and as for Mr. Jones, who had

been waiting for an explanation of some sort, he thought that she had

come to apologize, to confess to a passing hysteria, possibly to

jealousy induced by the fact that the wife of one of the South African

millionaires had worn a ruby the night before that was the talk of the

town. Well, she should have a bigger one if the earth could be made to

yield it up.

Mr. Jones returned home every afternoon at precisely the same hour, and

to-day, having “smartened up,” was sitting in a leather chair near the

window with a finance review in his hand, when Ishbel entered. He did

not rise, but asked her if she felt better, indicated a chair opposite

his own, and waited for her to begin. She should have her ruby, or

whatever it was she wanted, but not until she was properly humble and

asked for it.

Ishbel smiled into those eyes that always reminded her of shoe buttons,

and said sweetly, “I was horrid, of course, last night—”

“You were. And it was extremely unpleasant for me at the ball. Nobody

addressed me except to ask where you were. I felt like a keeper minus

his performing bear.” His tone was not without bitterness.

“I am so sorry. But I could not go. I wanted to think.”

“Think? Why on earth should you think? You have nothing to think about;

merely to spend money and look beautiful.”

Ishbel smiled again, showing her dimples. There was not an edge of her

inflexible will visible in the beautiful hazel eyes that she turned full

upon him. “Well, the fact remains that I did think. And this is the

result: I wish to earn my living.”

His jaw dropped. He thought she had lost her mind.

“It is quite true, and I mean to do it. I find I don’t like living on

any one. We’ve never pretended to love each other. If we did—well, I

think I should have felt the same way a little later. As it is, I don’t

find it nice, living on you—”

“You’re my wife!” thundered Mr. Jones. “What the hell are you talking

about?”

“I’ve no right to be your wife—”

“You’ve been a damned long time finding it out—”

“Five years. Bridgit says I have an Irish imagination. I’ve worked it

persistently for five years, and worked it to death. I not only

persuaded myself that I was doing you a tremendous service, but that I

was entirely happy in being young and having all the luxuries and

pleasures and gayeties that youth demands. I am only twenty-four. Five

years in one’s first youth is not so long a time for delusion to last—”

“Have you fallen in love?”

“Not for more than three hours at a time. Somehow, you all fall short,

one way or another. I think I have fallen in love with myself. At all

events I want an individual place in the world, and, as the world is at

present constituted, the only people that are really respected are those

that either inherit fortunes or abstract the largest amount of money

from other people. Even birth is going out of fashion. It doesn’t weigh

a feather in the scale against money.”

“You’re talking like a lunatic. I couldn’t have got into society with

all my millions without you, or some one else born with a marketable

title, and you know it.” Mr. Jones was so astonished that only plain

facts lighted the chaos of his mind.

“All the same you are far more respected than my poor old father, who is

a lineal descendant of the O’Neil. Even if people did not respect you

personally,—and of course they do,—they all respect you far more than

they do me. Who would look at me if I had married one of your

clerks—birth or no birth? And who regards me, as it is, but anything

more than one of your best investments? I am useful to you and pay my

way, but I’m of no earthly importance as an individual. I haven’t even

as good a position as Bridgit, who inherited a fortune, although a

bagatelle compared to yours—”

“Is that what you’re after—a slice of my fortune in your own right?”

“No, I only want enough to start me in business, and I shall pay it

back—”

“I’ll have you put in a lunatic asylum. What business do you fancy you

could make a go in? Mine?”

“No. The French bourgeoisie are about the only people that have solved

the sex problem: every woman in the shop-keeping class, at least, is her

husband’s working partner. But financial brains are not indigenous to my

class. If I had one, I’d make myself useful to you in the only way that

counts, and charge you high for my services. But as it is, I’m going to

do the one thing I happen to be fitted for—I’m going to be a milliner.”

“A milliner!” roared Mr. Jones. His face was purple. It was all very

well to assume that his butterfly had gone mad; he had a hideous

premonition that she was in earnest and as sane as he was. In fact, he

felt on the verge of lunacy himself. He could hear his house of cards

rattling about him.

“Yes,” said Ishbel, smiling at him, as she had always smiled when asking

him to invite another of her sisters to visit them. “I can trim hats

beautifully. My hats are noted in London—”

“They ought to be. The bills that come from those Paris robbers—”

“I retrim every hat I get from the best of them. And I’ve pulled to

pieces the hats of some of the richest of my friends. They will all

patronize me. I shan’t rob them, and I have at least fifty ideas for

this season that will be original without being bizarre—hats that will

suit individual faces and not be duplicated. Oh, I know that I have a

positive genius for millinery!”

The purple fell from Mr. Jones’s face, leaving it pallid. He stared at

her, not only in consternation, but in deeper perplexity than he had

ever felt in his life. Probably there is no state of the masculine mind

so amusing to the disinterested outsider as the chaos into which it is

thrown by some unexpected revelation of woman’s divergence from the

pattern. It has only been during those long periods of the world’s

history, as Bridgit and Ishbel had discovered, when men were at war,

that women, poor, even in their castles, with every faculty strained to

feed and rear their children, and no society of any sort, often without

education, have given men the excuse to regard them as inferior

beings—physical prowess at such times being the standard. But men have

had so many rude awakenings that their continued blindness can only be

explained by the fact that a large percentage of women, while no idler

and lazier than many men, have been able to flourish as parasites

through the accident of their sex. During every period of comparative

peace and plenty, women of another caliber have shown themselves

tyrannous, active, exorbitant in their demands, and mentally as alert as

men. If they disappeared periodically, it was only because they had not

fully found themselves, had exercised their abilities to no definite

end. A recent German psychologist, one of the maddest and most

ingenious, discovered something portentous in such periodicity as he

took note of: the prominence of woman in the tenth, fifteenth, and

sixteenth centuries, and again in the nineteenth and twentieth, assuming

it to be the result of an excess of hermaphrodite and sexually

intermediate forms, a state of affairs not unknown in the vegetable

kingdom. Therefore, must woman’s periodic revolt mean nothing more than

a biological phenomenon.

This theory would furnish food for much uneasiness were it not that the

philosopher overlooked, deliberately or otherwise, the fact that woman’s

star has flamed at some period or other in nearly every century, and

that these periods have coincided with man’s ingenuous elevation of her

to gratify his vanity while his chests were full and his weapons idle.

Since the beginning of time, so far as we have any record of it, women

have sprung to the top the moment that peace permitted wealth, leisure,

and servants; and so far from their success being due to abnormality,

their progress and development have been steadily cumulative. To-day,

for the first time, they are highly enough developed to take their

places beside men in politics, know themselves well enough to hold on,

not drop the reins the moment the world’s conditions demand the physical

activities of the fighting sex.

Although the great Woman’s Suffrage movement was, for the moment, in the

rear of the world’s problems, thousands of women in England and America

were thinking of little else, planning and working quietly, awaiting

their leader. This psychological wave had washed over Ishbel’s sensitive

brain and done its work quite as thoroughly as if she had gone to

Manchester and sat at the feet of Dr. Pankhurst. It is the fashion to

give Ibsen the credit of the revolt of woman from the tyranny of man,

but that is sheer nonsense to any one acquainted with the history of

woman. Ibsen was a symptom, a voice, as all great artists are, but no

radical changes spring full fledged from any brain; they are the slow

work of the centuries.

“Perhaps I should have put it another way,” said Ishbel. “I fancy the

point is, not that the world respects you more for amassing wealth, but

that you respect yourself so enormously for having won in the greatest

and most difficult game that men have ever played. Diplomacy is nothing

to it. That only requires brains and training. To coax gold from full

pockets into empty ones and remain on the right side of the law,

requires a magnetic needle in the brain, and is a distinct form of

genius. Talk about riches not bringing happiness, I don’t believe there

is a rich man living, even if he has only inherited his wealth, who does

not find happiness in his peculiar form of self-respect, and in his

contempt for the failures. If he has inherited, it is an achievement to

retain, and when he has made his fortune, he must feel a bigger man than

any king. Well, in my little way, I purpose to enjoy that sensation. And

to make money, to accumulate wealth, is, I am positive, one of the

primary instincts—if it were not, the world would have been socialistic

a thousand years ago. But the secret desire in too many millions of

hearts has prevented it—”

“My God!” roared Mr. Jones. “Have you got brains?”

“I hope so.” She smiled mischievously. “I couldn’t make money without

them.”

“Suppose you had half a dozen children?”

“Of course, if I hadn’t thought it all out in time, I should bring them

up first. But I feel sure the time will come when every self-respecting

woman will want to be the author of her own income—when no girl will

marry until she is.”

Mr. Jones looked and felt like the fisherman who has gone out in a

sail-boat to catch the small edible prizes of the sea, and landed a

whale.

“You never thought that all out for yourself,” he growled. “Where did

you get it, anyhow?”

“Last night I realized that I had been learning unconsciously for years,

and remembered everything worth while I had ever heard men and women

talk about. After all, you know, clever men do talk to me.”

“Clever men are always fools about a pretty face.”

He got up and moved restlessly about the large room, too full of

furniture for a man with big feet, and long awkward arms which he did

not always remember to hold close to his sides. He longed for his punch

bag. Ishbel smiled and looked out of the window.

“What in hell’s come over women?” he demanded. “I thought they only

wanted love when they talked of happiness.”

“Oh, you’re like too many men—have got your whole knowledge of women

from novels. Perhaps you even read the neurotic ones that are having a

vogue just now. Wouldn’t that be funny! We women want many things

besides love, we Englishwomen, at least; for we belong to the most

highly developed nation on the globe. And we are the daughters of men as

well as of women, remember. And we have heard the affairs of the world

discussed at table since we left the nursery. That man doesn’t realize

what he has made of us is a proof that he is so soaked in conventions

and traditions that he is in the same danger of decay and submergence

that nations have been when too long a period of power has made them

careless and flaccid—and blind. We want love, but as a man wants it;

enough to make us comfortable and happy, but not to absorb our whole

lives—”

“What?” Mr. Jones swung round upon her, his little black eyes emitting

red sparks. “That’s the most immoral speech I ever heard a woman make.”

“I shall keep faith with you,” said Ishbel, carelessly. “Don’t worry

yourself. I’ve made a bargain with you and I shall stick to it, just as

I shall be perfectly square in business. All I want is to be as much of

an individual as you are, not an annex.”

Mr. Jones had an inspiration and resumed his seat. “Look here!” he said.

“You say you play a square game, that you will live up to your contract

with me; and marriage _is_ a partnership, by God! Well—if you go

setting up for yourself, you injure my credit. I’m in a lot of things

where credit is everything. Money (actual gold and silver) is not so

plentiful as you think, and the greatest coward on earth. If there

should be the slightest suspicion that I was unsound—”

“Why should there be? You will continue to live here in the same style,

and I shall keep my rooms, and go about with you once or twice a

week—even wear some of your jewels. What more could you ask?”

“What more?” Jones was purple again. “This: I didn’t marry to be made a

laughing-stock of. Everybody’ll say I’m mean—”

“Not if you set me up. And you can get your good friend, _The Mart_, to

say that I am ambitious to set a new style in fads—”

“There are some statements that no fool will swallow—let alone sharp

business men in the City. Fad, indeed—when you will be standing on your

feet all day in a milliner shop—unless—” hopefully—“you merely mean

to put your name over the door to draw customers, and pocket the

proceeds. That would be bad enough—but—”

“By no means. What possible satisfaction could I get out of making other

people do what I want to do myself? You might as well ask an author if

he would be content to let some one else write his books so long as he

had his name on the title page and pocketed the profits. The joy of

succeeding must lie in the effort, in knowing that you are doing

something that no one else can do in quite the same way. I can be an

artist even in hats, and I propose to be one.”

“And if I refuse you the capital?”

“Bridgit will lend it to me.”

“I am to be blackmailed, so!”

“What is blackmail?”

“As if a woman need ask! Every woman is a blackmailer by instinct. I

suppose that if I won’t give you the money for this ridiculous

enterprise, you will leave my house—ruin me socially, as well as

financially?”

But Ishbel’s wits were far nimbler than his. “No,” she said sweetly, “I

can never forget that I owe you a great deal. Whether you advance me the

capital or not, I shall continue to live here, and entertain for you

whenever I have time.”

The mere male was helpless, defeated. A month later his name was over a

shop in Bond Street, and the success of the lady whose title preceded it

was so immediate that he began to brag about her in the City. But he was

by no means reconciled. His order of life, that new order in which he

had revelled during five brief years, was sadly dislocated. Many

husbands and wives are invited separately in London society, but he made

the bitter discovery that when Ishbel was forced to decline an

invitation for luncheon or dinner he was expected to follow suit. He

could walk about at receptions or teas if he chose, but it became

instantly patent that no woman, save those whose husbands were in his

power, would see him at her table when she could get out of it. There

were one or two new millionnaires in society that had achieved a full

measure of personal popularity, and were sometimes asked without their

wives, but Jones was hopelessly dull in conversation, and had a way of

“walking up trains,” and knocking over delicate objects with his elbows.

And then he was unpardonably ugly to look at; moreover, evinced no

disposition to pay the bills of any woman but his wife. That was a fatal

oversight on Mr. Jones’s part, but no one had ever been kind enough to

give him a hint.

All this was bad enough, but in addition he perceived that while society

patronized Ishbel’s shop, and pretended to admire or be amused, they had

respected her far more when she was reigning as a beauty and spending

her husband’s vast income as carelessly as the spoiled child smashes its

costly toys. There is little real respect where there is no envy, and no

one envies a working woman until she has made a fortune and can retire.

Ishbel had dazzled the world with her splendid luck, added to her beauty

and proud descent. It had called her “a spoiled darling of fortune,” a

“fairy princess,” and such it had envied and worshipped. But she had

stepped down from her pedestal; her halo had fallen off; she was no

longer a member of the leisured class, haughty and privileged even when

up to its neck in debt. Mr. Jones’s position in the City was not

affected, for men knew him too well, but society suspected that his

fortune was not what it had been, and that his wife wanted more money to

spend, or was providing against a rainy day. If neither suspicion was

true, then she was disloyal to her class, and a menace, a horrid

example. Her personal popularity was unaffected, but her position was

not what it was, no doubt of that, and the soul of Mr. Jones was

exceeding bitter.

XII

LORD ROSEBERY’S government, despite the duke’s optimistic predictions,

did not resign until June 24, consequently the general election was not

fought until July, and during all this time Julia was kept at Bosquith;

France, wholly amiable to his cousin’s wishes, stuck close to his

borough. He had not a political dogma, cared no more for the

Conservatives and Liberal-Unionists, than for Nationalists, Liberals,

Radicals, and Socialists, and he had no intention of boring himself in

Westminster save when his cousin required his vote. But he had planned a

very definite and pleasant scheme of life, and the enthusiastic favor of

the head of his house was essential to its success. He intended to

re-let his own place in Hertfordshire, and live with the duke, both in

London and in the country, until such time as his patience should be

rewarded and the divine law of entail give him his own. He not only

craved the luxury of the duke’s great establishments (as English people

understand luxury), but, quite aware of the position he had forfeited

among men, he was determined to win it back. Not that he felt any

symptoms of regeneration, but the pride, which heretofore had raised him

above public opinion, assumed a new form during his long convalescence,

and prompted respectability and enjoyment of the social position he had

inherited.

His cousin, although knowing vaguely that his heir had been “a bit

wild,” and not as popular as he might be, was far too unsophisticated to

guess the truth, and too surrounded by flatterers and toadies to hear

what would manifestly displease him. Moreover, although France was under

such strong suspicion of card cheating that no man would play with him,

he had proved himself too clever to be caught, therefore had escaped an

open scandal. He had twice avoided being co-respondent in divorce suits,

once by shifting the burden on to the shoulders of a fellow-sinner, and

once by securing, through a detective agency, such information that the

wronged husband let the matter drop rather than suffer a counter-suit.

But society was not his preserve. He was a man who had haunted byways

where women were unprotected, and far from the limelight; and although

there had been for twenty years the contemptuous impression that he was

one of the greatest blackguards in Europe, that there was no villainy to

which he had not stooped, he was, after all, little discussed, for he

was much out of England, and, when off duty, went to Paris for his

pleasures.

But although he had rather revelled in his dark reputation, he had now

undergone a change of mind if not of heart. He had had a long draught of

respectability, and of deference from his future menials and the several

thousand good men in his constituency who had never heard of him before

he came to Bosquith, as the convalescent heir of their popular duke, and

won them by looking “every inch a man”; he had a young and beautiful

wife with whom he was as much in love as was in him to love any one but

himself, and in whom he recognized a valuable aid to his plan of social

rehabilitation. Established in London as hostess of one of its oldest

and most exclusive private palaces, with every opportunity to exercise

her youthful charm (like the duke he despised brains in women), she

would take but one season to draw about her a court anxious to stand

well with the future Duchess of Kingsborough. And he was her husband.

They could not ignore him if they would; and they would have less and

less inclination, viewing him daily as a man ostentatioulsy devoted to

his wife, taking his parliamentary duties very seriously indeed (he knew

exactly the right phrases to get off), and living a life so exemplary

and regular that his past would be dismissed with a good-natured smile

(for was he not a future duke?), or openly doubted for want of proof. He

knew that some people would never speak to him, others never invite him

to their tables, although he might, with his wife and cousin, receive a

card to their receptions; but, then, London society was very large, and

he could endure the contempt of the few in the complaisance of the many.

His first quarry was the duke, already disposed to like him extremely,

as they were the last males of their race, and latterly quite softened

by certain sympathies and anxieties for his afflicted relative that had

never infused his dry smug nature before. He was also one of those

survivals that like anecdotes, and France, in his wandering life, had

insensibly collected an infinite number. Naturally the most silent of

men, he now made himself so agreeable that the duke, long companionless,

himself suggested the permanent residence of the Frances under his

several roofs, overrode all his cousin’s manly objections, and looked

forward to a revival of the historic splendors of Kingsborough House

with something like enthusiasm. France cemented the new bond when he

appeared, as soon as his convalescence was over, at morning prayers, and

even compelled the attendance of the rebellious Julia.

This alien in the great house of France detested family prayers. They

were very long, the duke’s dull languid gaze travelled over his shoulder

every time she sat when she should have knelt, and they came at an hour

when she wanted to be on the moor or riding along the cliffs. But when

she openly expressed herself, her husband, although he picked her up and

kissed her many times, unobservant that she wriggled, replied

peremptorily:—

“Not another word, my little beauty. To prayers you must go. It’s a

rotten bore, but it’s the duty of a wife to advance her husband’s

interests. Get our mighty cousin down on us, and we live in

Hertfordshire all the year round.”

Although she hid the thought, Julia would have submitted to more than

prayers to avoid living alone in a small house in the country with her

husband. She had heard so much of duty during the last year (even her

mother’s letters were full of it), that she had set her teeth in the

face of matrimony, persuaded herself that France was no more offensive

than other husbands, that hers was the common lot of woman, and, after

reading Nigel’s book, that she was singularly fortunate in not having

been born in the slums. But although she refused to admit to her

consciousness a certain terrified mumbling in the depths of her brain,

she did acknowledge that she no longer had the least desire for a child,

and that she hated the scent of the pomade on her husband’s moustache.

It was a pomade that had been fashionable for several years, and was

used as sparingly as possible on France’s bristles; but lesser trifles

have killed love in women, and Julia, frankly unloving, conceived an

unconquerable aversion for this sickly scent; to this day it rises in

her memory as associated with the abominable injustice that had been

committed on her youth.

But she kept her mind and time fully occupied. She visited the sick,

rode her good horse, and read until there was nothing left in the

Bosquith library to satisfy her still insatiable mind. Then, for the

first time, she realized that she had not a penny in her purse, had not

had since her first few weeks in London. She made out a list of books

she wanted, surmounted her diffidence, and asked her husband if she

might order them from London. France, when she approached him, was

smoking a pipe by the library fire, his cannon-ball head sunken

luxuriously into the cushions of the chair, and his glassy eyes half

closed. He pulled her down on his knee and read the list, then laughed

aloud and pinched her ear.

“Never heard of one of these books, but they have an expensive

look—wager not one of them costs under a pound. That would mean about

ten pounds—by Gad! That would never do. I’m economizing and you must,

too; for although we shall live with Kingsborough, we can’t expect him

to pay for our clothes and all the rest of it. Besides, I don’t want an

intellectual wife—had no idea you read such bally rot. Intellectual

wives are bores, get red noses, and rims round their eyes. Jove! Think

of those eyes gettin’ red and dim. I’d make a bonfire of all the books

in England first. No, my lady, it’s your business to look pretty, and to

remember a famous saying of our future king: ‘Bright women, yes; but no

damned intellect.’ We want to have a rippin’ time as soon as Salisbury

is in again, and I won’t have you frightenin’ people off.”

“I never supposed you would care so much for society,” said Julia,

lamely. “I always think of you as a sailor.”

“I want what’ll be mine before long—what I’ve been kept out of long

enough,” he answered savagely.

Julia was shocked. It was the first time he had betrayed himself, so

anxious had he been for her good opinion, so careful not to excite

himself with tempers until his heart was quite strong again. As she left

his knee and turned her disconcerting eyes on him, he recovered himself

with a laugh.

“I believe it’s all your mother’s fault. She told me it was your

fate—by all the stars!—to be a duchess, and I don’t think I’ve got it

out of my head since. But you know I’m devilish fond of my cousin—only

one I’ve got, for those old hags don’t count. I’ll chuck such ideas,

and—” his voice became sonorous with virtue—“think only of his

kindness and of serving my country when my time comes.”

The time came in July, and he carried his borough almost without effort,

so irresistible was the conservative reaction. He was not much of an

orator, but not much was required of him. He made a fine appearance on a

platform, and when, after a flattering introduction by the chairman, he

stood up before a sympathetic audience, and between some scraps of party

wisdom, furnished by the duke, doubled up his aristocratic hand and

wedged it firmly into his manly thigh, and brought out in all its

inflections: “Indeed, I _may_ say—Indeed, _I_ may say—Indeed, I may

_say_—_Indeed_ I may say!” the applause was stupendous.

Julia, sitting behind him with the duke, had much ado not to laugh

aloud, but, then, Julia was an alien, and had no appreciation of

gentlemen’s oratory.

She had taken more interest in the wives of the voters, and been

relieved to find that their poverty was rather picturesque than

bitter—Nigel’s book had given her a profound shock—but had wept at

some of the tales told by women that had relatives in London and the

great manufacturing towns of the north. After France’s final triumph,

when he had been carried back to Bosquith on the shoulders of several

honest yeomen, followed by a cheering mob of several hundred more, she

asked him impulsively (being electrified herself for the moment) if he

might not serve his country best by making a crusade against poverty.

But he looked at her in such genuine bewilderment that she dropped the

subject.

XIII

TO France’s intense disgust Parliament met on August 12, that

consecrated date when grouse are first hunted from their lairs. There

was nothing for it, however, but to go up to London with the triumphant

duke and sit on a bench through at least one hot hour each day. The rest

of his hours he spent at his club, to avoid meeting his patriotic

relative, and Julia, for the first time, found herself possessed of a

certain measure of liberty. To be sure, she was several times caged in

the House of Commons, and once slept above the peers, but for the most

part she was left to herself, the duke almost forgetting her in the joy

of his occasional chats in the lobby with Lord Salisbury, and the

excitements provided by Mr. Chamberlain. He had neither hope nor wish

for the onerous duties of a cabinet minister, but for many years

politics had formed the only excitement of his rather colorless life;

whether his party were in or out, he always managed to be of some slight

use to it in the upper House. He was laughed at sometimes by the giants

of his party, but on the whole regarded as a safe reliable man, and

received doles of flattery to keep his enthusiasm alive.

Everybody was out of town except Ishbel, who was casting nets for the

rich tourists, and Julia sat for hours in the gay little shop on the

second floor of an old building in Bond Street, watching her friend with

wide admiring eyes, and even envying her a little. This, however, she

suppressed. She was to be a duchess, and that was the end of it. She

would fill her high destiny to the best of her ability, but she wished

that meanwhile she could earn a little money, or some unknown relative

would leave her a legacy. France was still “economizing” and gave her no

allowance; she literally had not money for cab fare. She was determined,

however, never to ask him for money again, so deep had been her

mortification when he had refused her simple request for books.

Parliament remained in session something over a month, being prorogued

on September 15. The duke returned to Bosquith for the rest of the

grouse season, opened his house in Derbyshire for the pheasant shooting,

and went again to Bosquith for partridges and hunting. This time there

were guests. Many of them were carefully selected from the most ardent

supporters of the present Government; but Mrs. Winstone, who, deeply to

her satisfaction, was invited to coach and assist the young chatelaine,

was permitted to invite “a few younger people, but no really young

people.” The duke was alive to the necessity of maturing his heir’s wife

as rapidly as possible. The company was always an extremely

distinguished one, as Mrs. Winstone took pains to impress upon the

somewhat indifferent Julia; not the least exalted members of the

Government honored the various parties, and a good many of the younger

men accepted invitations which would force them into association with

Harold France, partly to please Mrs. Winstone, partly out of curiosity,

and principally because the duke’s shootings, always kept up but seldom

placed at the service of guests, were famous. Julia, alive to her

responsibilities, set her mind upon becoming an accomplished hostess,

and although the everlasting talk of politics and sport bored her, she

was rewarded with a few pleasant acquaintances, who in a measure

consoled her for the temporary loss of Bridgit and Ishbel.

There was a fine old Jacobean mansion on the estate in Derbyshire, and

Julia reminded herself that she was realizing a youthful dream, admired

the brilliant appearance of the women at dinner, and went occasionally

to the coverts. But the immense beautiful house had the more notable

attraction of a fine library, and Julia’s happiness was further

increased from October until the middle of February by the fact that she

saw less of her husband than formerly. No more ardent sportsman

breathed; he could kill all day, and when he came home at night was

agreeably fatigued and ready for sleep. He was as much in love as ever,

but it was long since he had been able to command all the pleasures of

his class, and he meant to enjoy every good that came his way to the

last nibble. No more methodical soul ever lived. Julia sometimes

wondered if he were not a creature manufactured and wound up, like

Frankenstein, rather than man born of woman, but it was long before she

found the clew to his character.

When they returned to Bosquith, Julia had even more freedom than during

the weeks devoted to the puncturing of grouse and pheasant. The women

had joined the men for luncheon during the grouse season, tramping the

moors in very short skirts and very thick boots; and in Derbyshire, the

coverts not being too far from the house, the men had returned for their

midday meal. But the farms, with their turnip fields, were many miles

from the moors which surrounded the castle of Bosquith; the women showed

less enthusiasm; and it was out of the question for the men to return,

even in a break, for luncheon. Therefore, did the women, including Mrs.

Winstone, sleep late, and Julia found the morning hours her own. She

enjoyed her freedom at first in long rides alone, and with no particular

object, but in the course of a week she accidentally made the

acquaintance of one of the tenants, Mr. Leggins (the sportsmen had

exhausted his field and moved on), and she found his somewhat radical

discourse refreshing after the undiluted and therefore unargumentative

conservatism of the castle’s guests. Mr. Leggins, indeed, when the

intimacy had progressed, did not hesitate to express himself on the

injustice of annually sacrificing his best fields to the sporting pride

of hereditary lords of the soil. One argument in England against giving

women the vote is that they are all conservatives at heart, but Julia,

at least, seated under the mighty beams of the old farm-house, with a

bowl of bread and milk before her, listening to the old man inveigh

against the iniquity of laws that forced a family like his own to pay

rent from generation to generation, a rent which increased with every

improvement made by the tenant, instead of being permitted to buy their

land and feel “as good as the next man,” assumed that there was

something wrong with the world, and often wondered if she were not in

the sixteenth century, when the farm-house had been built; wondered

still more why the world progressed so rapidly in some things and

remained stationary in others. Mr. Leggins, in those early morning

hours, told her something of Socialism, and she began to have grave

doubts if she should ever become a duchess, if those lagging millions

would not suddenly awaken and come to the front with a bound.

But these grave questions agitated her fleetingly at this period, for

there were other attractions at the Leggins farm. It embraced a famous

ruin, and the farmer kept a small public house of “soft drinks” for its

many visitors. This was Julia’s first glimpse of the genus tourist, and

its very difference from the guests at the castle entranced her. She

often spent the entire morning watching and often talking to strange

people with frank inquisitive eyes and an amazing thoroughness in

exploration. Many had accents undreamed of in her short sojourn on this

planet. Mr. Leggins called them “Americans,” and Julia sunned herself in

their breezy democracy, and resolved to read their history as soon as

she returned to London and its public libraries; no recognition of their

existence was to be found at Bosquith. Julia had seen several Americans

in Ishbel’s shop, but they had been so very elegant, and such good

imitations of the British grande dame, that they had not impressed her.

These short-skirted, “shirt-waisted” people, with flying

veils—generally blue—attached precisely or rakishly to hats, sailor or

alpine, with faces, more often than not, gay and careless, but sometimes

with an anxious line between the brows as if fearful they might “miss

something” while photographing even the diamond panes of the farm-house

windows, thrilled Julia with the sense of a new world to discover, of a

country which must be divinely free since it once had snapped its

fingers in mighty England’s face, and now elected a President every four

years (this much Mr. Leggins had told her), and gave its humblest man a

vote. Of the peculiar tyrannies which have grown up under the

Constitution of the United States (tyrannies impossible under an

autocracy) Julia, of course, knew nothing; and although she had no cause

to complain of monarchical tyranny in Great Britain, she was beginning

to feel the stirrings of a dim resentment against the insignificance of

her own estate. Not only had Ishbel talked to her a good deal during the

short session of Parliament, but she observed for herself that the

duke’s house parties were organized with pointed reference to the

pleasure and comfort of the male sex. The men were given the best rooms,

the board was set with the heavy food necessary to the replenishment of

their energies, they shot all day long, barely opening their mouths to

speak at table, and often went to bed immediately after dinner. The

women were invited merely to ornament the table and make the men forget

their fatigue, or to amuse them if they felt inclined now and then to

vary sport with flirtation. For these heroic ladies not one amusement

during the shooting season was designed; of course they would hunt

later. No men were asked save those that shot. Even “old Pirie,” and

Lord Algy went out with the guns. Julia wondered why these women came,

and finally concluded that some came in search of husbands or lovers,

others to keep an eye on husbands or lovers. Some, no doubt, enjoyed the

rest at no expense to themselves, but all were frankly bored. Now and

again Julia, at tea time, heard a woman discourse upon the happy fate of

the American woman, who had “things all her own way,” and to whom man

was a slave. Listening to the animated babble about the table in Farmer

Leggins’s living room, where the Americans imbibed milk, bottled

lemon-squash, and sarsaparilla, Julia longed to ask the prettiest of

them if they were spoiled wives. France professed to adore her madly,

but he neither petted nor spoiled her. She was his prize exhibit, his

woman, his harem of one, and he was immensely satisfied with his

discrimination and his luck. He never even asked her if she were

content, if she were bored. What liberty she had she was forced to

scheme for, like these visits to the fascinating public house of Farmer

Leggins. Had the duke or even Mrs. Winstone seen her sitting at that

table, sometimes cutting bread, always talking to people she had never

seen before and never would see again, they would have been outraged;

and, no doubt, as the times were too advanced to shut her up, she would

have been compelled to ride with a groom, and give her word to ignore

farm-houses (save when votes were wanted), and to speak to no one to

whom she had not properly been introduced. But all three of her

guardians were happily ignorant of her performances, and no mortal ever

enjoyed her liberty more, or took a naughtier delight in it.

One morning she was sitting beside Farmer Leggins uncorking bottles and

ladling out milk (his son Sam’s wife, who kept house for him, was away),

when three people alighted from a carriage who interested her

immediately. Not only were the woman and the young girl, and even the

boy, dressed more smartly than was common to the tourist in that part of

the country, but they suddenly ducked their heads in a peculiar way, and

entered the farm-house hat first. The rest of the room was occupied by a

party of school-teachers, who invariably wear out their old clothes in

Europe, and Julia gave the newcomers her undivided attention. Mr.

Leggins also rose with some alacrity, and placed them at a small table

by themselves, waiting until their pleasant voices assured him that they

had all their appetites demanded.

“They’re Californians,” whispered Mr. Leggins, as he returned to Julia’s

side. (As the reader is now acquainted with every known dialect, it is

not necessary to torment him with the Yorkshire.) “San Franciscans, to

be exact. I always can tell them by the way they put their heads down in

a breeze—wind always blows in San Francisco, and it’s second nature to

butt against it. I know the earmarks of every state in their

union—section, at least—and not only by their accents. You can know a

Californian because he hasn’t any, but the others would butter bread,

except when they happen to have had brass long enough to rub it off in

Europe. Even then they keep a bit of it. But I know them by other

things. This party of school missuses is from what they call ‘the East’;

they’ve every one got suspicion in their eyes, and are that close! It’s

a wonder they don’t bring scales to weigh my bread. The ‘Middle West’

people are like children, pleased with everything, and crazy about

ruins; free with the brass, too. The ‘Southerners’ look as if they ought

to be rich and ain’t, but never haggle. The high-toned ‘Easterners,’

haven’t an exclamation point among them, are so polite they make you

feel like dirt, pay with gold and count the change. Where on earth is

Sam?”

Sam had disappeared shortly after showing the school-teachers over the

ruin, and the Californians had risen, manifestly awaiting a guide.

Sam (who occasionally stole away to watch the shooting) was not to be

found. Julia volunteered to show the party over the ruin.

“I’d be that grateful!” exclaimed Mr. Leggins; and to the Californians,

“There ain’t much to the ruin, and she knows it as well as Sam.”

The lady looked at her curiously, for the guide wore her habit, and

manifestly was not of the house of Leggins, but she expressed herself

satisfied, and followed Julia across the bridge that spanned the ditch.

The young girl was too weary with much travel for interest in anything,

but the youth had already fallen a victim to Julia’s charms, and

manœuvred to reach her side. He was a fine-looking lad, tall for his

years, which might have been fifteen, with a shock of black hair, keen

black-gray eyes, and a dark strongly made face. It was a new-world face,

with something of the pioneer, something of the Indian in it, but, oddly

enough, almost aggressively modern. Julia had observed him under her

lashes, and wished he were older. Few men tourists came that way, and

this boy was of a more marked type than any of them.

“My, but this is bully!” he exclaimed. “You won’t mind my saying it, but

I’ve been watching you for half an hour—couldn’t eat—but—well—I

never saw a prettier girl even in California.”

“Then you _are_ a Californian?” asked Julia, much amused. “And a San

Franciscan?”

“Now, how can you tell that?”

“Mr. Leggins says you all hold your heads forward on account of the

winds—to keep your hats on, I suppose.”

“Jiminy, that’s clever! Fancy an English farmer having sense enough for

that. Ours are pretty stupid—perhaps because they live so far apart.

This whole island isn’t as big as the state of California.”

“You don’t mean it,” gasped Julia, not in the least resenting this

characteristic boast.

“And there are real forests in it—primeval.” The youth was delighted

with the impression he had made. “Not woods that you can see the horizon

from the middle of. Great Scott! this island is cut up. You can’t get

rid of the towns, except on these big estates. Why, in the manufacturing

districts they tail into one another. In California—”

“Dan!” said a reproving voice from the rear. “Stop bragging. This is my

brother’s first visit to Europe,” added the lady, with a smile. “And

like all Americans in similar circumstances, he observes only to

contrast and deprecate. He’ll behave much better on his next visit. That

first protest is only defiance, anyhow—to still the small voice which

tells us how new and crude we are in the face of all this antiquity and

beauty.”

“Oh!” said Julia, smiling. “I fancy that if I visited your country, I

should be too awed even to feel my own littleness.”

“That is the prettiest speech I ever heard!” The lady extended her hand.

“Won’t you tell me your name? Mine is Bode, and this is my sister, Emily

Tay, and my brother, Daniel Tay.”

“I am Mrs. France. It is delightful to know your names—”

“Mrs.!” gasped the boy, his face falling until he looked almost idiotic;

but Mrs. Bode’s eyes sparkled.

“Not of Bosquith?” she asked.

Julia nodded gloomily.

“I have met Mrs. Winstone, and last summer I read all about you when

your husband was so ill.”

“Read about me?” Julia’s mouth opened almost as wide as young Tay’s.

“Where?”

“Oh, our correspondents don’t let us miss anything, and that was a big

plum for the end of the season. I know all about your romantic marriage,

and your still more romantic West Indian home.” She had bred herself too

carefully to add, “and that you will one day be a duchess”; but the

words danced through her mind, and she felt that she was having an

adventure. Julia was in no condition to notice any faux pas; her

imagination was visualizing her insignificant self in the columns of a

newspaper seven thousand miles away, and she felt a strange thrill, such

as what small deferences she had received from servants and toadies had

never excited in her: the first vague pricking of ambition.

“There was a picture of you in the Sunday supplement of one of the

papers,” went on Mrs. Bode. “Of course I guessed it wasn’t you—looked

suspiciously like one of our own belles touched up—”

“My picture! I’ve never had my picture taken.”

“The more pity,” said Mrs. Bode, with gracious gayety. “I should beg for

one as a souvenir, if you had.”

“Gee whiz! My camera!” cried young Tay, recovering himself, and whipping

the camera off his shoulder. “Will—would you stand?”

“Of course!” Julia not only had fallen in love with her new friends, but

rejoiced in doing something which she instinctively knew would annoy her

husband. When woman’s ego is fumbling, it is only in these world-old

acts of petty and secret vengeance that it triumphs for a moment over

the sex that has bruised it.

She posed, with and without her hat, against the gray walls of the ruin,

in a group with Mrs. Bode and Emily, and again with young Tay alone.

Then she lit her candle and led them down the winding passage to the

room where Mary of Scotland was supposed to have slept on her way to

Fotheringay. As they emerged once more into the court, she impulsively

asked them to come that afternoon to the castle for tea.

“I am sure my aunt will be enchanted to see you,” she added, “and I can

show you over Bosquith, which is much more interesting than this.”

“I’ll be delighted,” said Mrs. Bode; and Julia, who had experienced a

moment of fright at her temerity, took courage again at the American’s

matter-of-fact acceptance. Pride also came to her aid. Why should she

not ask whom she chose to Bosquith? Was she not its chatelaine? Her aunt

was one of her guests, monitress though she might be. To be sure, she

had been forbidden to ask Bridgit or Ishbel, but, then, the duke had a

personal dislike for both—he now thought Ishbel quite mad and had

written her father a letter of condolence; he was hospitable in his way,

and could find no objection to these delightful travellers that knew

Mrs. Winstone.

She blushed and stammered, “I must ask you not to say anything about my

helping Mr. Leggins, and being so much at home here—”

“Of course not!” Mrs. Bode, as she would have expressed it, “twigged

instanter.” “We met while exploring the ruins, and got into

conversation.”

“You are so kind. And you will come at five—no, four, and then I can

show you the castle before tea.”

“We shall be there at four. Thank you so much.”

They parted, mutually delighted with their morning’s adventure, the

ladies going to their carriage, and young Tay gallantly assisting Julia

to mount her horse.

“Jiminy!” he whispered ecstatically. “You’ve got hair! And eyes! Stars

ain’t in it! Say, I’m awful glad I’m going to see you again, and I’m

awful glad I can take your picture back to California with me!”

He was only fifteen, but Julia blushed as she had never blushed for

Nigel. It may be that our future lies in sealed cells in our brains, as

all life in the universe, past, present, future, is said to be Now to

the Almighty. Under certain lightning stabs it may be shocked into a

second’s premature awakening.

Julia, however, was annoyed with herself, said “Goodby” rather crossly,

and rode off.

XIV

MRS. BODE was one of those astonishing Americans who, often with no

social affiliations whatever, even in their native city, or living on

the very edges of civilization, have yet so wide and accurate a

knowledge of the cardinal families of the various capitals of the world,

that they would be invaluable in the offices of Burke, Debrett, and the

Almanach de Gotha. Whether this enterprising variety of the genus

Americana invests in these valuable works of reference, or merely

studies them in the public libraries, ourselves would not venture to

state; but that is beside the question; some highly specialized magnet

in their brains has accumulated the knowledge, and less ambitious

Americans, even aristocratic foreigners, are often humbled by them when

floundering conversationally among the ramifications of the peerages of

Europe. These students, if New Yorkers, take no interest in the “first

families” of any state in the American Union save their own, but if a

malignant chance has deposited them on what stage folk call “the road,”

then are their mental woodsheds stored with the family trees of their

own state, _and_ New York. Never of any other state: Washington is “too

mixed”; Boston is “obsolete”; Chicago is “too new for any use”; San

Francisco is too picturesque to be aristocratic; the South can take care

of itself; and the rest of the country, with the possible exception of

Philadelphia, would never presume to enter the discussion.

Nor is this the extent of their knowledge. They can talk fluently about

all the great dressmakers and milliners that dwell in the centres of

fashion, and even of those so exclusive as to cater only to the

best-bred Americans, and they are always the first to appear in the new

style, even though they have no place to show it but the street.

Moreover, they know every scandal in Europe, scandals of aristocrats and

prime donne, that no newspaper has ever scented. They discuss the great

and the famous of the world as casually as their own acquaintance,

dropping titles and other formalities in a manner that bespeaks a keen

and secret pleasure that the less gifted or less energetic mortal may

sigh for in vain.

Mrs. Bode came of good pioneer stock, her sturdy Kansas grandfather,

Daniel Tay, having been among the first to brave the hardships of the

emigrant trail and make “his pile” in California. Not that he made it in

one picturesque moment. He was only moderately lucky in the mines. But

he could make pies, and miners were willing to pay little bags of

gold-dust for them. He set up a shop for rough-and-ready clothing in

Sacramento, with a pie counter under the awning. At all times he made a

handsome income, and when the miners came trooping in drunk and

reckless, he cleaned up almost as much as the gambling-houses.

In due course, he migrated to San Francisco, and, abandoning a plebeian

method of livelihood of which his wife had learned to disapprove,

embarked in a commission business including hardware and groceries. In

those wild and fluctuating days he made and lost several fortunes. When

his son, Daniel Second, grew up, he was a fairly prosperous merchant,

with connections in Central America and China. His coffee, spices, teas,

and such other delicacies as even the renowned California soil refused

to produce were the best on the market; and had it not been for the old

gaming fever in his blood, which sent him on periodic sprees into the

stock-market, he would have accumulated a large fortune and permitted

his wife and daughters to assist in the making of San Francisco’s

aristocracy. But they were always being either burned out or sold out of

their fine new houses, and Mrs. Tay died a disappointed woman. The

Southerners held the social fort and she had never crossed its

threshold. To be sure, she had washed the miners’ overalls in the rear

of the Sacramento store while the pies were being devoured in front, but

ancient history is made very rapidly in California, and there were signs

that several no better than herself were “getting their wedge in.”

Mr. Tay soon followed his wife into the imposing vault on Lone Mountain,

but not before adjuring his son to “let stocks alone.” The advice was

unnecessary, for Daniel Second was a shrewd cautious man, immune from

every temptation the fascinating city of San Francisco could offer. He

put the business he had inherited on a sure foundation, rebuilt modestly

whenever he was burned out, and was impervious to the laments of his

pretty second wife that they were “nobodies.” Mrs. Tay felt that heaven

had endowed her with that talent most envied of women, the social, but

her husband was more than content to be a nobody so long as his

financial future was secure; and it was not until his oldest daughter,

Charlotte,—or “Cherry” as she was fondly called,—came home from

boarding-school for the last time, that he was persuaded to buy a large

and hideous “residence” with a mansard roof, a cupola, and bow-windows,

suddenly thrown on the market by a disappearing capitalist, and “splurge

a bit.”

The splurging carried them but a short distance. St. Mary’s Hall,

Benicia, where Cherry had received the last of her education, was an

aristocratic institution, and she had made some good friends among the

girls. But although they came to her first party, and she was asked now

and again to large entertainments at their homes, it was more than

patent that the Tays were not “in it.” There was no reason in the world

why they should not be, for they were not even “impossible” (as the old

folks had been); but whether Mrs. Tay was less gifted socially than she

had fancied, or people so long out of it were regarded with suspicion or

cold indifference by the venerable holders of the social fort, or Tay’s

modest fortune was not worth while, in view of the enormous fortunes

that had been made recently in the railroads and the Nevada mines, and

“Society was already large enough,” certain it is that Mrs. Tay and her

step-daughter spent long days in the library of their big house in the

Western Addition, consoling themselves with books (and who shall say

that Burke and the Almanach de Gotha were not among them?) or “the

finest view in the world.”

This unhappy state of affairs lasted for two years, and then Cherry had

an inspiration. One of her father’s friends was the owner of a powerful

newspaper, and he had a friend as powerful as himself in the state

whence came the present Minister to the Court of St. James. Armed with

letters from these two makers and unmakers of reputations, Cherry took

her mother to London and requested to be presented at court. The request

was granted, and this great event, as well as their subsequent

adventures in the most good-natured society in the world, were cabled to

the San Francisco newspapers.

Mr. Tay had snorted in disgust when the plan was unfolded to him, but

had yielded to sulks, tears, and hysterics. One season, however, was all

he would finance; but his wife and daughter, although they had hoped to

remain abroad for two years, returned with the less reluctance as they

were now “names” in the inhospitable city of their birth. These names

had been embroidered for four months with royalty, a few of the best

titles in Burke, and many of the lesser. (“Precious few will know the

difference,” said Cherry, scornfully.)

Their position, as a matter of fact, was somewhat improved; Cherry was

admitted to the sacred Assemblies, and people allowed themselves to

admire her Parisian gowns, her pretty face, and refined vivacious

manner. At the end of the season she captured the son of one of the new

great millionnaires. The Tays had arrived. The past was forgotten by

themselves if not by other walking blue books, that fine scavenger

element in Society which allowed no one permanently to sink “pasts,”

ages, ancestral pies, saloons, brothels, wash-tubs, or any of the humble

but honest beginnings which fain would repose beneath the foundations of

San Francisco. But the Tays, like many another, fancied their past

forgotten, whatever the fate of their neighbors; and, as a matter of

fact, they were now so firmly established that three divorces could not

have dislodged them. Mrs. Bode, in her superb mansion on Nob Hill,

forged ahead so steadily that she enjoyed excellent prospects of being a

Society Queen, when the old guard should have died off, and Mrs. Tay had

stuccoed her house, shaved off the bow-windows, flattened the roof,

replaced rep and damask with silks and tapestries, and both were happy

women.

All this may sound contemptible to those that enjoy a proper scorn of

Society; but it must be remembered that as the world is at present

constituted, women, not forced to work for their living, and born

without talent, have little outlet for their energies. And of these

energies they often have as full a supply as men. Besides, they don’t

know any better.

Mrs. Bode was thirty-two at the time the Tay family entered Julia’s

life, and although she had been abroad many times since her marriage,

this was the first visit of her younger brother and sister; Mr. Tay

“having no use for Europe and the Californians who were always running

about in it when they had the finest slice of God’s own country to live

in.” But Mrs. Bode was an avowed enemy of the “provincial point of

view,” and justly prided herself upon being one of the most cosmopolitan

women in San Francisco society. She was determined that her little

half-sister, to whom she was devoted, having no children of her own,

should enjoy all the advantages she so sadly had lacked, and Dan’s

obstreperous Americanism had “tired” her. So, for the last eight months,

with or without the amiable Mr. Bode, and in spite of cables from pa,

who wished Daniel Third to finish his education as quickly as possible

and enter the firm, she had piloted her charges through ruins, picture

galleries, cities ancient and modern, museums, and mountain landscapes;

besides forcing them to study French and German two hours a day with

travelling tutors; until Emily yawned in the face of everything, and Dan

threatened to cable to his father for funds and return by himself. But

Mrs. Bode, whose own leave of absence was expiring, held them well in

hand, and announced her intention of bringing them over every summer.

This program she carried out as far as Emily was concerned, but it was

fifteen years before Daniel Tay found time or inclination to leave his

native land again.

Their reception at the castle was all that Julia could have wished. Mrs.

Winstone was delighted to see them, Mrs. Bode being impeccable in her

critical eyes inasmuch as she had no accent, did not flaunt her riches,

and was never so aggressively well dressed that she made an Englishwoman

feel dowdy. If she had been told of the Sacramento store, with the pies

in front and the wash-tubs behind, it would not have affected her

judgment in the least. She would have replied that all Americans had

some such origin; and nothing amused her more than their ancestral

pretensions. “New is new, and republics are republics,” she said once to

Mrs. Macmanus, when discussing a grande dame from New York. “What silly

asses they are to talk ‘family’ in Europe! We like some and we don’t

others, and that’s all there is to it.”

As neither painted, she and Mrs. Bode kissed each other warmly, and, the

American having had her fill of ruins long since, they went off to a

comfortable fireside to gossip, leaving Emily and Daniel to Julia. The

little girl was openly rebellious, when ordered to investigate the

ruined portion of the castle, but Daniel would have followed Julia

straight out into the North Sea. He had never been insensible to the

charm of girls, but here was a goddess, and he proceeded to worship her

in the whole-hearted fashion of fifteen, and with an enthusiasm the more

possessing as it knew no guile.

They wandered through old rooms and passages, under and over ground,

ivy-draped and stark, Julia recounting the castle’s many histories.

Emily lagged behind and wilfully closed her ears. Finally, having

emerged upon the flat roof of a tower, she saw that she could find her

way back to the garden without getting lost, announced her intention

curtly, and ran down the spiral stair.

“Good riddance,” said her brother, as he and Julia sat down to rest.

“But I don’t blame her. This is the last dinky old castle that I look at

this trip. America for me, anyhow. Don’t think I’m a Western

savage—that is what Cherry calls me—it’s awfully good of you to climb

round like this and spiel off such a lot, and this really is the

dandiest castle I’ve seen. But I’ve been dragged through about a

hundred, and as for pictures—wow! They can only be counted by miles.

I’ll never look at another as long as I live. Give me chromos, anyhow.

We have some in the garret at home, and I like them better than the old

masters—got some color and go in them, and not so much religion.”

Julia laughed outright. She thought him a young barbarian, but

refreshing as the crystal water of a spring after too much old

burgundy—this simile inspired by memory of the army of aristocrats she

had met since her arrival in England. These gentlemen, most of them

splendid to look at, were either formal and correct even when most

languid, or bit their ideas out in slang, giving the impression that

they thought in slang, dreamed in slang, indubitably made love in it;

but it was a slang, which, loose and ugly as it might be, often

meaningless, seemed to cry “hands off” to all without the pale. Some

were affected, but all of these were affected in precisely the same way.

Each and every one was full of an inherited wisdom which betrayed itself

in manner and certain rigid mental attitudes, even where brain was

lacking. To Julia, at this moment, they seemed in an advanced stage of

petrifaction. Even Nigel was a grandfather in comparison with this

bright green shoot from the new world. And Julia warmed to his frank

admiration. The men to whom she had done duty as hostess since the 15th

of September had paid her little or no attention. They were interested

in some one else, they found her too young, they were too tired for

flirtation after a long day with the guns, or they were wary about

“poaching on the preserves of a cad like France. He had a look in his

eye at times that would warn any man off.”

Whatever the cause, Julia, whose natural feminine instinct for conquest

had been awakened during her brief season in London while she was still

a girl, and who missed Nigel’s adoration, was willing to accept her due

at the hands of fifteen, nothing better offering. Besides, the boy

amused her, and she was seldom amused these days.

“Tell me more about California,” she said; and under a rapid fire of

questions Dan artlessly revealed the history of his family (he was very

proud of it), and, incidentally, told her much of the social

peculiarities of his city. It was a strange story to Julia, who knew

nothing of young civilizations, and was profoundly imbued with a respect

for aristocracies. She felt that she should place this young scion of a

quite terrible family somewhere between the steward of Bosquith and Mr.

Leggins; but when she looked squarely into that open ingenuous fearless

almost arrogant face, the face of an intelligent boy born in a land

whose theory is equality, and in whose short life poverty and snubs had

played no part, she found herself accepting him as an equal. His face

had not the fine high-bred beauty of Nigel’s nor the mathematical

regularity of her husband’s, but the eyes were keener, the brow was

larger and fuller, the mouth more mobile than any she knew; and these

divergencies fascinated her. But she drew herself apart in some

resentment as he asked her abruptly:—

“What does your husband do for a living?”

“Do—why, nothing.”

“Nothing? Great Scott! What sort of a man is he? When American men don’t

work, even if they have money, we despise them. They generally have to,

anyhow. If they inherit money they have to work to hang on to it. Some

of them drink themselves to death, but they don’t count.”

Julia had colored haughtily, but wondered at her eagerness in

exclaiming: “My husband was in the navy, but he has resigned and is now

a member of Parliament.”

“Well, that’s doing something, but not much. I remember, now, Cherry

told me he’s going to be a duke. Then, I suppose, he’ll do nothing at

all.”

“Oh, yes, dukes have to look after their estates; they don’t leave

everything to their stewards; they take a paternal interest in the

tenantry; sometimes they are magistrates, and sometimes they go to the

House of Lords.”

“Well, that’s just playing with life, to my mind,” said young Tay, with

conviction. “A man isn’t a man who doesn’t earn his keep and make his

pile. I’m almost sorry my father is well off: I’d like to make my own

fortune. But there’s this satisfaction; if I don’t work as hard as he

does, when my time comes, I’ll be a beggar fast enough. Competition’s

awful; and even people that do nothing but cut coupons for a living

often get stuck. People are rich to-day and poor to-morrow, when they’re

not sharp. Makes life interesting. But just living on ancestral

acres—Gee! I’d die of old age before I was twenty-five.”

“I wonder if that is the way Ishbel felt?” murmured Julia, thoughtfully.

Ishbel’s sudden departure from the tenets of her class had astounded

her, and, in spite of explanations, she was puzzled yet.

“Ishbel?”

“Lady Ishbel Jones. She is the daughter of a poor Irish peer, and

married a very rich City man. After five years of society and

pleasure—she is beautiful and charming—she suddenly decided she wanted

to make money herself and opened a hat shop in Bond Street. She would

just suit you.”

But young Tay frowned and shook his head vigorously. “Not a bit of it.

Women were not made to work, but to be worked for. If I had my way,

every man should be made to support all his poor women relations, and if

the women hadn’t any men relations, then I’d have the other men taxed to

support them. It makes me sick seeing girls going to work in the morning

when I am starting for my ride in the Park. And a rich man to let his

wife work! I call that downright disgusting.”

Julia, much to her astonishment, resented this speech. “That’s tyranny

of another kind. Women are not dolls. You talk like a Turk.”

“Turk? Dolls!” He arose in his wrath. “I’d have you know that American

women do just about as they please, and American men are famous for

letting them.” He added, with his natural honesty: “Some are strict and

old-fashioned, like my father, but nobody could say he wasn’t generous.

And what I told you is the reputation of American men, anyhow.”

“Well, sit down again, please. I am surprised. I thought you would

respect Ishbel.”

“Not I. She’ll spoil her looks, and then where’ll she be?”

Julia, in a moment of prescience, asked with a mixture of wistfulness

and disdain, “Do you care so much for mere beauty?”

“Betcherlife. I hate ugliness, and I love pretty girls. We have them in

San Francisco by wholesale. To be ugly is a crime out there. I intend to

marry the prettiest I can find just as soon as I’m old enough.”

“And some day—when she loses her youth and beauty?”

“Oh, I’ll love her just the same, for she’ll be my wife, and I’ll be old

myself then, and have nothing to say. But I’ll have had the pick. I

intend to have the pick of everything going.”

“Going?”

“In life. I must teach you our slang. English slang has no sense.”

“I fancy I could understand you better if you did. But I’ve seen men

whose wives were once young and pretty, and who are always after some

beauty twenty years younger than themselves—thirty—forty—”

Then she blushed, feeling that such a display of worldly knowledge was a

desecration in the presence of fifteen summers.

But young Tay answered indifferently: “Oh, we’ve plenty of those at

home. The bald heads always make the worst fools of themselves. But I

mean to have a real romance in my life and stick to it. Shall only have

time for one, as when once I put on the harness I mean to keep it on.

I’m going to be one of the biggest millionnaires in the United States.

Say, what made you marry so young? You don’t look more than sixteen.”

“I’m nineteen,” replied Julia, haughtily.

“Well, don’t get huffy. You ought to see how extra sweet Cherry looks

when some one tells her she looks ten years younger than she is—”

“So does Aunt Maria!” Julia laughed again. “Fancy a boy like you

noticing such things.”

“I’m fifteen, not so young for a man, particularly when he’s been

brought up in a family of women. He gets on to all their curves—I tell

you what! And I can tell you that many an American boy of fifteen is

supporting his mother—whole family.”

“You don’t mean it!”

“I do. It’s not so easy, but it’s done every day. I don’t pretend there

are not lots that let their sisters work, but that’s either because they

can’t get along, no matter how hard they try, or because there’s a screw

loose—foreign blood, most likely. No real American would do it. If pa

died to-morrow, I’d quit school and go right into the firm. Nobody’d get

the best of me, neither.”

It was impossible to resist such firm self-confidence. Julia looked at

him in open admiration.

“Say!” he exclaimed, with one of his dazzling leaps among the peaks of

conversation. “Would you mind letting your hair down?”

“Why—What?”

“I’d like to see all of it.” And young Tay spoke in the tone of one

unaccustomed to have his requests ignored. “Do.”

Julia looked him over, shrugged her shoulders, then took out the combs

and pins. After all, he was only a boy, and she was feeling singularly

contented. It was seldom that she had experienced more than a fleeting

moment of companionship. She had come near to it with Nigel, Bridgit,

and Ishbel, but they seemed years older than herself, and vastly

superior. She would have been unwilling to admit it, but at this moment

she really felt sixteen.

“Jiminy!” exclaimed young Tay, as the breeze lifted the shining masses

of hair. “There’s nothing to beat it even in California. Red? Not a bit

of it. It’s the color of flames, and flames are a clear red-yellow—like

Guinea gold.”

He didn’t touch it, but his eyes sparkled as he watched it float, or

hang about her white face and brilliant eyes in their black frames.

“Gee! But I’d like to marry you. Why couldn’t you wait awhile?”

“It wouldn’t have done any good,” said Julia, who, like most females,

was of a literal turn. “I shouldn’t be here, but in the West Indies, and

you might never go there.”

“Well, what’s done’s done,” replied the boy, gloomily, and with the

agreeable sensation of being the blighted hero of a romance so early in

life. “What sort of a chap is your husband? I shall hate him, but I’d

like to know—”

“He—well—he’s—”