did. Jimmy not only lost thousands during the panic, but has developed a

mania for speculation. I think it is because he has so much less of society than formerly, and wants excitement.”

“Does he blame you?” asked Julia, going to the point as usual. “Of course people don’t want him without you. I hear he wasn’t asked to a single house party.”

“Yes, he blames me. My conscience hurt me for a time, but I talked it out with Bridgit, and we both came to the same conclusion: during those five years I paid him back with interest. If he can’t take care of himself now, it is his own lookout. I am living to repay him what I borrowed, for he has thrown it at my head more than once, his losses not having improved his temper. That is the reason I am not going out at all this year.”

Julia, twirling her check, stared at her. The immense amount of reading she had done had set her mind in active motion, developing natural powers of reason and analysis. And unconsciously, during the last six months, at least, she had been studying and classifying the many types she had met. She knew that Ishbel, as she uttered her apparently heartless and unfeminine sentiments, should have looked hard, sharp, or, at the best, superintellectualized and businesslike. But never had she looked prettier, more piquant, more feminine. Her liquid brown eyes were full of laughter, her pink lips were as softly curved as those of a child that has never whined, and her rich voice had no edge on it. Charm radiated from her. In a flash of intuition Julia understood.

“It is because you like men—that you don’t change,” she said. “You never will. But how do you reconcile it? You despise them—”

“Oh, dear me, no. I adore them. No charming man’s magnetism is ever lost on me, and I am in love with three at the present moment. That is all, besides my work, that I have time for. Only—I don’t have to marry any of them, and find out all their little absurdities. I idealize them, sentimentalize over them, and that pleasant process would color the grayest of lives.”

“Suppose you should really fall in love?”

“Oh, I am quite safe until thirty, then again until forty; then again I shall have a respite until fifty. Perhaps by that time we shall carry over till sixty. It would be rather jolly. And the certainty of falling in love once in ten years is not only something to look forward to, but ought to satisfy any reasonable woman.”

“I wonder if you are what my American friend called bluffing.”

Ishbel blushed, dimpled, looked the most lovable creature in the world and the most temperamental. But she laughed outright.

“Of course I bluff, my dearest girl. I bluff every moment of my life; I bluffed myself, poor Jimmy, and the world for five years. Now I bluff myself into thinking I am radiantly happy because I am independent, whereas as a matter of fact, I am often tired to death, hate the people I have to be nice to—it is not so vastly different from matrimonial servility and management, except that you are more easily rid of them, and they are always changing. But I stick to this, shall stick to it until I have made enough to invest and give me an independent income; no matter how much I may long to be lazy or frivolous, to dance, to flirt week in and out at house parties—partly because I now enjoy that supreme form of egoism known as self-respect, partly because the spirit of the times, the great world-tides urge me on, partly because, when all is said and done, work fills up your time more satisfactorily than anything else. I had exhausted pleasure, was on the verge of satiety. That would have been hideous. But I purpose to bluff myself one way and another to the end of my days. I am convinced it is the only form of happiness.”

Julia drank all this in. She knew that although Ishbel spoke in her lightest and sweetest tones, she uttered the precise truth, and that she was deliberately being presented with a window out of which she should be expected to look occasionally, instead of remaining smugly within the conventional early Victorian walls of her present destiny. Julia was used to these little lessons in life from her older friends and liked them, but she sighed, nevertheless. She was proud to develop so much more quickly than most young women of her too sheltered type, but on the other hand she longed at times for youth and freedom and an utter indifference to the serious side of life. For the moment she regretted her reading, wished ardently that she could have been a girl in London for two seasons. Being put into training for a duchess at the age of eighteen may gratify the vanity, but, given certain circumstances, it extracts the juices from life.

Ishbel, as if she had received a flash from that highly charged brain, leaned over and kissed her impulsively. “Oh, you poor little duchess!” she exclaimed.

But Julia was shy of demonstrations and asked hastily:—

“How is Bridgit? It is nearly a year since I saw her, and she only sends me a line occasionally like a telegram.”

“Not as happy as she would be if she were earning her bread, but she is rapidly finding her métier. All this last year, inspired in the first place by Nigel’s book, she has been investigating the poor and the poor laws, visiting settlements, hospitals, factories, laundries—you know her energy and thoroughness. The result is that she is close to being a Socialist—of an intelligent sort, of course—pays her bills as soon as they are presented, despises charities, and is convinced that women should become enfranchised and have full control of the poor laws.”

“She must be rather terrifying!”

“She has succeeded in terrifying Geoffrey, and I fancy with no regrets. He is having a tremendous flirtation with Molly Cardiff and is little at home.”

“And Nigel?”

“Still on a Swiss mountain top, writing another book. Of course he is in love with you still, poor dear!”

Julia was not displeased, but replied philosophically: “It’s well he’s not here, for I should want to talk to him, and I never could. Harold is insanely jealous.”

“Oh, that will wear off. They are all like that at first. Englishmen of our class are not provincial, whatever else they may be.”

But as Julia followed her downstairs to try on the newest models in hats, she felt that she had got no cheer out of the last observation. She had a foreboding that Harold would become worse instead of better.

XVII

IT was the night of the 15th of March. Invitations had been sent out three weeks since for the great party, which on this date was to inaugurate the reopening of Kingsborough House. The footmen had been put into new livery, but although the reception-rooms on the first floor, long swathed in holland and cobwebs, had been aired, cleaned, and polished, Julia’s tentative suggestion that the heavy carpets, curtains, and furniture of the early Victorian era be replaced with the more enlightened art of to-day was received with a haughty and uncomprehending stare. Julia had not returned to the subject. Banishing her scruples, she threw all her energies and taste into the replenishment of her wardrobe. As Harold had announced in terms as final as the duke’s stare that he would take his wife to no dances, where other men would have the right to embrace her, she had confined her apocryphal expenditures to such gowns and their accessories as would be needed at afternoon and evening receptions, luncheons, and the races. The dinner gowns of her first trousseau, although many of them had been worn at the house parties, were “smartened up” by the invaluable Mrs. Toner, and looked fresh and new.

The maid had been dismissed and Julia stood before the mirror in her large gas-lit bedroom, looking herself over carefully, without and within. She had sent for France, and there must be no weak points in her courage.

The vision in the mirror alone gave her courage (being as natural as a human being can be, she was still a vain little thing), and poised her spirit. After several consultations between herself, Ishbel, and the greatest French dressmaker in London, it had been decided that as this party would be her real introduction to society, and as she was little more than a girl in years, her gown must present a certain effect of simplicity. Therefore was Julia arrayed in white tulle and lace, over clinging liberty satin, and embroidered with crystal as fine as diamond dust. With her tropical white skin and flame-colored hair, this skilful costume gave her a curiously elusive and spritelike appearance. She wore some of the Kingsborough jewels: a diamond tiara, not ridiculously large, and several ropes of pearls. Few eyes can compete with the brilliancy of diamonds, but Julia’s did, assisted by the black brows and lashes which most women preferred to believe were artificial. She was not an imposing figure, for her height was only five feet three and a half in her French slippers, and her figure was still thin, although the bones of her neck and arms were covered; but as France entered the room he thought her quite the loveliest and daintiest creature in England.

“By God!” he cried, his heavy glassy eyes flashing. “You are rippin’! Never saw even you so well turned out.”

He had rushed forward, but Julia waved him back.

“You mustn’t touch me when I’m got up for the public,” she said imperiously. “You always muss my hair, and they will be coming in half an hour. I sent for you not to be admired, but because I have something to say to you.”

“Say?” repeated France, sulkily. His wife’s virginal coldness was one of her profoundest fascinations, but submissive she should be, nevertheless. “What can you have to say?”

“I merely want to tell you the cost of this gown.”

“What do you mean?”

“That it cost a hundred pounds.”

“What—what—”

“Just double the amount you gave me. And the rest of my wardrobe, with which I am to do you and the duke credit this season, has cost twice as much more.”

“What in hell are you talking about?” France tried to thunder, but his breath was so short that he could only splutter. “How dare you—”

“You never pay for your clothes until you have been summonsed a dozen times, why should I?”

“But I have to pay in the end! How _dared_ you? I know how women can get on with a little money. Do you think I don’t know anything about ’em? Extravagant as the devil, all of you, but able to do on half what it costs a man to turn himself out, all the same. What are maids for? Every woman could make her own clothes if she tried. I told you—My God! My God! If my word ain’t law—a hundred pounds!”

He was waving his arms, and Julia moved out of their reach, although she continued to look him in the eyes. His were bloodshot. “I shall have everything I want, or need, so long as I live with you,” said his wife, deliberately. “If you don’t want to pay for my clothes you can put me out. I could earn my living. Ishbel would teach me to trim hats.”

“You—you—”

France sat down, his mouth hanging open. Then with a curious instinctive movement he covered his face with his hand. When he removed it, his face, although still red, was closed and hard, and his eyes shone with a new desire.

“You’ve got a will of your own, young lady.”

“I have!”

“Well, by God, I’ll break it.”

“Try it.” Julia shook out her shimmering train.

“Three hundred pounds in one go!”

“Your income is two thousand a year, and you are practically at no expense.”

“It’s not your place to know what my income is, nor what I do with it.”

“But you see I do.”

France looked down, once more concealing his eyes. It was a part of his plan to show himself to the world as a devoted husband, to accept every invitation, save those for dances, to walk with his wife daily in the park, as soon as the fine weather began; in a word, to efface his past. He inferred that Julia had guessed something of this, and, having the whip hand, meant to use it. To antagonize her would be fatal. He longed to beat her: in fact, he felt a curious thrill at the prospect; but between the duke and the world, his hands, for the present, at least, might as well be pulp. He was amazed and bewildered to find that he had married something more than an exquisite bit of youth—conversation between them was almost unknown; and although it would be amusing to break her, he knew that he must temporize until the duke died. He believed that this happy event must occur before long, as the duke, fancying himself, under new medical advice, stronger than he had ever been, had overtaxed his frail constitution during the shooting season, and complained much of fatigue since his return to town. “By God!” he thought, “I’ll beat her the very day he dies.” And, although subtlety galled his abnormal vanity, he brought out in a fairly amiable tone:—

“Look here, old girl, you mustn’t let me in too deep. Remember I’m not Kingsborough yet. It’s not that I can’t pay these three hundred pounds—although the truth is, I’m economizing to pay off old debts, many of them debts of honor—used to gamble a bit when I was in the navy. So, don’t let me in any deeper, and when the old boy chucks it, you shall have all you can spend.”

“Meanwhile, I wish four hundred a year,” said Julia, inexorably.

“Oh, I say! These things should last you for two years. I know women—”

“You haven’t introduced them to me. If you don’t give me four hundred a year I’ll run into debt for that amount, and you are liable. I was married without being consulted. I don’t love you and never shall, but I submit to your demands, because it is my destiny. I am to be a duchess, and that is the end of it. Meanwhile, I shall get everything out of this tiresome life there is in it. You and my mother forced me into it, and I shall have compensations. I shall be as well dressed as any of the great ladies I am to associate with, many of whom I shall one day outrank. I shall see Ishbel and Bridgit just as often as I choose, and I shall buy all the books I want. I am going to job a brougham—”

“No! Not much!”

“I am going to job a brougham, and if you forbid it, there will be trouble with Kingsborough. From something he said the other day I know he assumes that I have one already. He knows you can afford it. He uses that ark in the mews, and I don’t want it, anyhow. For a long time I thought I never should speak to you on the subject of money again; you hurt me so that time I asked for a few books; but I have thought it out, and the result is this: while I am determined to have what I need without asking you, I think it only fair to warn you. Besides, I should grow nervous waiting for the bills to come in, for row after row.”

“You are damned hard for a young ’un.”

“I am not hard. I have made up my mind. That is all there is to it.”

France’s face convulsed with passion, but once more he controlled himself, although his hands worked.

“If I give you four hundred a year, will you promise to let me in for no more, and to pay for the brougham?”

“I’ll not let you in for more, but you shall pay for the brougham.”

“By God! You look like an arum lily standing there, and you are a little red-headed she-devil! This is the first time any woman has ever got the best of me. I’ve always treated ’em like cats.”

He rushed out of the room, afraid to trust himself further, and Julia, horrified at life, while experiencing a certain zest at having ground her legal master under her heel and watched him squirm, marched out and took her place beside the duke and Lady Arabella Torrence at the head of the grand staircase.

XVIII

JULIA’S new French slippers pinched, and her tiara pressed on certain nerves of her head, as the more humble hat pin has been known to do. The procession up the staircase seemed endless. To Julia it looked like a river of jewels; she had ceased to know or care who were the mere women beneath it. Not all of the men were foils. Royalty, the entire cabinet, and the diplomatic corps were present; gorgeous uniforms, sashes, and orders saved many men from being mistaken for waiters.

As the first guests were ascending, Julia had turned to the duke and said sweetly:—

“I have asked Ishbel and Bridgit, and they have promised to come.”

“You have what?” asked the duke, his dull eyes glowing.

“They were my first friends in England, and as I am your hostess, it occurred to me that I had the right to issue a few invitations on my own account. I merely mention it, that you may not be betrayed by surprise when you see them.”

“You have taken a purely feminine advantage—waiting until this moment to tell me—when I can do nothing!” It was long since the duke had felt himself on fire with passion.

“Of course we all take our advantages where we can, and are as deceitful as possible,” said Julia, smiling into his snapping eyes. “Those are primal weapons, and you gave them to us. Here come some terribly important people.”

The duke had been forced to swallow his wrath, and, in a few moments, forgot it in the sudden stream of arrivals. After a time fatigue overcame him and he slipped away, leaving Julia alone with Lady Arabella (yellow and bony in white embossed velvet and rubies). France was making himself agreeable to the dowagers. The interview with his wife had inspired him with a longing to go out and entice some wretch of the streets to a hiding-place, where he could beat her to a jelly, but the gall in his blood did not affect his shrewd cunning brain, which steadily pursued its object. To-night was his first opportunity to be gallant to women, politics and sport having claimed him since his illness; and after a few well-turned compliments, he talked of nothing but the beauty and virtues of his wife. Perhaps the duke was the only human being who really liked him, for, without magnetism or charm of any sort, he left both men and women cold where he did not repel; but to-night he acquitted himself so creditably that several mothers thought upon their loss with regret.

Julia’s mind was beginning to play her strange tricks. Carlyle’s “French Revolution” had been among the books at Bosquith, and its style had so fascinated her that she had read it twice. It so happened that a number of extremely handsome women with white hair honored the Kingsborough ball to-night. Some were young. All were gorgeously bedecked. The intense hard glitter of diamonds dissolved into mist, took on fantastic shapes: graceful powdered heads, glittering with jewels, on the top of pikes, warm pampered bodies blocking the stairs.

It was not so much that Julia’s mind was awakening to the problem of the poor, the menace of the unemployed and the underpaid; in truth, she generally shuddered and turned away when Bridgit and Ishbel discussed the subject; but these spectacular women on the grand staircase of Kingsborough House seemed so ripe! They looked so useless, so languidly magnificent, so overbred, so close to the apotheosis of their destiny, that—again her fancy veered—Julia half expected to see a row of footlights behind them; then a sudden shifting of scenery, and the tumbrel and guillotine. The time came when Julia knew many of them well enough to deal out a greater measure of justice than the outsider that hurls the word “parasite” at every woman fortunate enough to possess what the poor all want—wealth. She learned that many of them worked harder for their political husbands than an army of secretaries, that others rose, during the season, at an hour when they fain would have slept off the fatigue of the day before, in order to get through a mass of correspondence relating to the particular problem, political, social, or economic, they were striving to solve. Many of these women were mothers to their tenantry, watching over the growth and education of every girl and boy born on their estates. Others went daily to settlements, some to districts so abandoned as to be practically hopeless, and requiring a mettle far higher than the mere soldier needs when racing his fellows to battle. Some worked with churches, others with societies, others alone; nearly all were interested in one charity or another, many trying to feel their way through the obvious method of relief to some cause they could grapple with, since the power to legislate was forbidden them. Scarcely one of those women, dressed from Paris, weighted down with jewels old and new, but faced the serious side of life at some hour during the twenty-four; but although Julia came to know this, the impression of the terrible immaturity of civilization, caused by the blind vanity and selfishness of human nature at the outset, and persisted in through the centuries in spite of lessons written in blood, and of the gross unfairness of life, never left her. If she was in the toils of youth at present, and far more interested in herself than in the world and its problems, the mere fact that these blue marsh lights could dance across her mind occasionally, would have satisfied her more advanced friends that when the awakening came it would be sudden and final.

But not to-night. Her visions fled. She looked down into a pair of dark satiric eyes, and her own flashed back a more than courteous welcome. Ishbel had come some time since, and after piloting the delighted Mr. Jones up and down for half an hour (wearing his diamonds and looking the radiant wife), had deposited him between two of the haughty dowagers he loved, and fluttered off with her court. But Bridgit was late. She had demurred at coming at all, being “sick of the game”; but had yielded to Julia’s importunities, partly to “please the child,” partly because her mischievous soul suspected that the invitation did not emanate from headquarters, and delighted in giving the duke “a turn.” She might be well on the road to Socialism, and have come to the end of her capacity for mere pleasure, but she had not lost her sense of humor; and inborn arrogance of class never dies, no matter how amenable the brain to reason, and to a sincere democracy which manifests itself so effectively in manner. Bridgit’s paternal grandfather was a duke with three more quarterings to his credit than Kingsborough’s, ancestral performances known to every student of history, and two strains of royal blood with and without the bend sinister; therefore, did Mrs. Herbert feel that she was doing the old pudding an honor in coming to his musty barrack whether invited or not. And, automatically no doubt, she had attired herself in the fashion of her class, of the women in whose company she was to spend a night once more. She wore a gown of gold colored brocade opening over a round skirt of rose point. Rising out of the coils of her wiry black hair was an all-round crown of diamonds, and on her neck, falling to the soft lace of her corsage, was a chain of diamonds and pear-shaped pearls. With her fine upstanding figure, her towering height, and flashing black eyes, she might make the most compelling figure imaginable at the head of a rebel army singing the Marseillaise, but to-night there was no more stately dame in Kingsborough House.

Julia, somewhat in the fashion of royalty, passed on the people separating them, and grasped Bridgit’s hand, revivified by the sight of a dear and familiar face.

“Oh, I’m so glad,” she cried, indifferent to stares and the displeasure of Lady Arabella. “And they must nearly all have come. Do wait for me—”

She stopped short. She had had eyes only for Bridgit. Mechanically they had travelled on to Bridgit’s escort. The man standing with his hand outstretched was Nigel Herbert.

“He got home this afternoon,” said Mrs. Herbert, casually. “I knew you would like to see him, so I brought him on. How do, Lady Arabella? Always loved you in rubies.”

“Huh!” said Lady Arabella. She would have cut this dangerous apostate if she had been equal to the effort; but to freeze that bright powerful gaze, by no means without malice, was beyond her capacity, so she merely sniffed and advised her to seek the duke, who would be as delighted as herself to welcome Mrs. Herbert to Kingsborough House. She was of the many that blundered over sarcasm, and her soul shivered under the sweetness of Bridgit’s acceptance.

Meanwhile Julia was exclaiming to Nigel:—

“Oh, but I _am_ glad to see you! And _do_ go to the blue room and wait for me. It’s downstairs behind the library.”

Nigel’s face had flushed, then turned pale; the first moment of the renewal of their acquaintance had been an awkward one for him. It was with some difficulty that he had been persuaded to come at all. For many reasons he had wished never to meet her again, and had returned to England only because it was necessary to see his book through the press; a melancholy experience with the last having lost him his faith in proof-readers forever.

But when he saw the welcome in those big shining eyes, the happy smile on those young parted lips, he forgot even the subtle changes he had noted in her face, while still unobserved, and he flushed again, his heart beat rapidly. “Does she care?” he thought wildly. “Not now! Not now!—But—”

Julia was staring with almost childish delight at the frank handsome face of her first friend in England. She forgot the romantic hour at Bosquith, forgot that she had sat up all night to contrive an extinguisher for the embarrassing passion of this misguided young man, remembered only that here was a real friend; moreover, one possessing that magnet of sex lacking in Bridgit and Ishbel (such being the cross currents in her still imperfect soul), so congenial that she could have flung her arms about him at the head of the grand staircase of Kingsborough House. She had never met any one she liked half as well.

He caught his breath sharply, whether in relief or disillusion, he did not pretend to guess at this moment.

“I’ll wait for you,” he said, and made way for the next arrivals.

Some ten minutes later Julia turned to Lady Arabella.

“They are beginning to straggle,” she said. “If you don’t mind I won’t stay any longer.”

“I do mind,” severely. “And your place is here, child as you are.”

“I can’t see why. . . . More guests. . . . Who cares about a child? And you are vastly more important.”

“You have acquitted yourself very creditably. . . . Besides, people are curious to see you, and nobody cares for an old thing like me.”

“Half of them are still glowing with the honor of having shaken hands with you—you go out so seldom. . . . Besides, my slippers pinch. I want to put on an old pair.”

“I always wear slippers a size too large and made by a surgical shoemaker, on occasions like this. You must do the same. I should have told you.”

“I’ll order a pair to-morrow, but that doesn’t do me any good now.”

“Very well. Run along.”

XIX

THE blue room, furnished by the late duchess, and undisturbed by her loyal son, was of that sickly azure hue once affected by pale blondes. The walls were further ornamented by bits of sentimental tapestry, the chair backs with anti-macassars, stitched and woven by her Grace’s own white hands. There was an entire sofa,—but why harrow the soul of the reader, even as Nigel’s soul should have been harrowed as he sat with closed eyes awaiting Julia? As a matter of fact, he forgot the hideous room at once, and, heroically dismissing Julia from his mind that he might be quite composed when she entered, dwelt with satisfaction upon his interview with his father a few hours earlier. That eminently practical peer had cast him off when he fled from England, leaving a curt note to announce his intention to devote himself to the art of fiction. He might have starved after the fashion of more orthodox bidders for immortality, had it not been for a small personal annuity which enabled him to live comfortably in Switzerland while engrossed in his book. It was during this period, living in a mountain inn, without luxuries, paternal menace and thwarted passion behind him, that Nigel learned the profoundest lesson art teaches: its power to pulverize the common human emotions and desires. Only the true artist, of course, gets the message, is capable of immolation conscious or otherwise, of elevating art above life.

Nigel was a born artist and had in him the makings of a great one. Nevertheless, the discovery that nothing really mattered but his work, that only his characters lived, and personal memories were dim, not only surprised, but deeply mortified him. Being a man, as ready as the next to love, and to fight and die for his country, it alarmed him to discover that he carried within him a possible rival to his manhood, the highest attribute, etc. But he was not long consoling himself. He progressed to rapture over the discovery, ended by being humbly grateful. He was a man all right, that needn’t worry him; he was willing, therefore, to admit that to be an artist was a greater endowment still. And it gave him a sense of independence, of liberty, of superiority, to which the air of the high Alps contributed little or nothing.

Then came the intoxication of success, of that immediate recognition so many have hungered for in vain. Lest his head be turned and his art suffer, he went on a walking trip through Germany, Italy, and France, sleeping in inns and receiving neither letters nor newspapers. Nor did he meet any one he knew. He even avoided Englishmen lest he prove himself unable to resist the temptation to lead the conversation round to his book. Not only was he a sincere artist, but he blindly clung to this new and friendly magician that made the world so agreeably little.

When he returned to his eyrie, full of his new book, he found a letter from his practical papa, forgiving him, since success had attended his dereliction, and enclosing a check. Nigel responded amiably, then flung himself once more at his desk, anxious to learn if the embryonic book contained the same brand of enchantment as the first: the vision of Julia had haunted his lonely footsteps. It did. Julia fled. He forgot his family, himself, his success. Once more he was pure artist, therefore entirely happy.

But he was still young. The second book had now gone from him. Art slept. As he heard the rustle of a train, the hearty welcome, the proud words of his father, deserted his memory, his heart almost stopped. Nevertheless, as he rose to greet Julia his face was expressionless of all but suave languid politeness. He, too, “fell back on technique.” And this easily adjusted armor of the aristocrat is the best of his assets. When a man smiles in the face of death, without bravado, it merely means that he is well bred. His heart may be water.

Nigel was intensely irritated with himself for having been betrayed into something like emotion at the head of the stair, and he spoke with a slight drawl as he shook Julia’s hand.

“Awfully good to see you,” he remarked. “You look rippin’, too. Will you sit here?”

“Let me get this crown off. It weighs tons.” Julia unfastened the Kingsborough diamonds and deposited them irreverently in a chair, then took the one Nigel offered. “I’d have left it upstairs, but I suppose I shall have to walk about later. I do hope I shan’t have to wear it often. Thank heaven, I’m not a duchess yet!”

Nigel knew the pitfalls in that engaging frankness and steeled himself.

“Oh, you’ll like it when the time comes,” he said indifferently. “How’s the duke?”

The duke had always been such a negligible quantity, both physically and socially, that no one felt self-conscious in referring to his demise a trifle earlier than the conventions prescribed. Julia certainly felt no false shame as she replied:—

“Better—rather. He shot, and even rode to hounds now and again. He’s looked a bit off his feed since our return to town, and I know Harold believes he’s not going to live much longer; but that’s because he’s made up his mind that he’s waited long enough. I hope Kingsborough’ll brace up. Of course I came to England prepared to have him die at once, but, somehow, you can’t live in the house with a man and wish him dead—at least, I can’t. Besides, as I said, I’m in no hurry. In fact, I prefer it this way.”

A shadow passed over her face, and Nigel asked with less languor:—

“Why?”

“Oh—I think it a good thing for a man to have a mental occupation, and waiting for dead men’s shoes is an occupation—rather! Ra-_ther_, as the boys say. I don’t know Harold so awfully well, but I have an idea he would be lost—and quite impossible—if he couldn’t scheme about something. He’s the sort of man that always has a grievance, loves to think himself abused if only because it gives him an excuse to plot and imagine himself getting the better of somebody. Besides—this is more like playing with life. The real thing must be full of responsibilities that don’t mean so much, after all. Now—sometimes—I can fancy I am a girl, masquerading, and I can do all sorts of things I couldn’t do if I were of any importance.”

“And just how much of a girl do you feel?” he asked with bitter emphasis.

It was not possible for Julia to turn any whiter than she was at all times, but her expressive eyes grew so dark that they deepened the whiteness to pallor. For a moment she looked older, and, swiftly as it passed, Nigel detected an expression of fear and horror in the gaze that no longer met his, but looked beyond. He caught both arms of his chair, and held his breath. But in an instant it was as if a hard little hand had rammed memory down into the depths of consciousness and bolted a lid above it. Julia’s eyes flashed back to his, full of mischievous gayety.

“Now don’t indulge in romantic fancies about me,” she said. “If I proclaimed from the housetops that I don’t love my husband, that I was married by my mother, no one would pay the least attention. Everybody knows it and nobody cares. What is done is done. I have a philosophical nature myself. Remember that my horoscope was cast three times. And I have my compensations.”

“What are your compensations?”

“Oh, books, my best friends—you among them!—a certain freedom I find here in London, and mean to have more of, and clothes! clothes! You have no idea what pretty frocks I have. That isn’t all. It’s great fun to get the best of Harold—to give him another grievance! But I do get the best of him—and of the duke, too, occasionally. There’s a curious satisfaction in it—”

“Be careful! You’ll be hard, first thing you know.”

“The harder women are, the happier they are, I fancy. A sort of fine steel armor that you could hide in your hand but that covers you from head to foot. I’ve used my eyes these last two years. That is all that keeps most women from being ground to powder. One can try to keep soft inside, you know.”

“There’s one thing I don’t know—what you are driving at. I can’t make out whether you are changed altogether, or are the same delicious child, or if you are trying to keep your old personality intact, while forced to admit to partnership an ego you have manufactured in self-defence. One moment you look wise, almost hard, the next—”

“I refuse to be stuck on a pin in your psychological cabinet. But I suppose you’ve got us all there. Herbert Spencer says—”

“Oh, for God’s sake, don’t become a clever woman! Whatever—”

“Why not? Don’t you fancy that would be a compensation?”

“You clever! It would be too awful!”

“You talk like Mr. Jones.”

“Hang Mr. Jones. Ishbel was entirely right; and she is one of the few women on this earth that can be clever, as deep as the pit, and never let a man find it out. But you! You are too straightforward and honest. Not that Ishbel isn’t honest; she’s a brick; but she has a special talent—possibly it lies in her coquetry. You have little or no coquetry. You are in a state of flux at present, and if you decide for the second ego, if you become hard and clever, you never could disguise it. So beware, or you’ll not be able to love and be happy when your time comes.”

“You mean to make some man happy!”

“What is the difference?”

“Oh, lots. I try not to think. I want to remain young as long as I can. But I can’t help observing that men like geese,—what they call feminine women. I suppose you mean that clever women find too many other resources, and therefore are independent of men. Ergo, they don’t make men happy.”

Nigel colored. “Something of that sort.”

“I shouldn’t have thought it of _you_. Fancy your being just the ordinary male, after all.”

“Let us drop generalities and my humble self. I am thinking of you. We don’t live in a moral world or age. Like all women you will, sooner or later, demand happiness as your right. In other words, you will wake up some day and want love. Then you will have lost the power to charm. You would never be content with a fool, and clever men rarely love clever women—not with their eyes open. You are quite right as you are. Enjoy life. Let its problems alone.”

This impassioned plea for her youth left him almost breathless. For the moment he was not conscious of loving her himself, of pleading for his own future before it was too late. His languid dignity had retired from the field; he felt only that he had arrived in time to avert a tragedy, and so impersonal that his chest lifted slightly. The next moment he was gasping under a douche of cold water.

Julia had thrown her head back and was looking at him with softly shining eyes, her lashes half covering, and filling them with little black lines.

“I’ll tell you a secret,” she whispered. “I’ve never told any one. I’m—I’m in love.”

“What!”

“You’ll never breathe it?”

“Who—who—”

“It’s a man I’ve never seen.”

“How can you love a man you’ve never seen? What a baby you are!”

“I didn’t say I loved; I said I was in love. And a man I’ve never seen is the only sort I could go that far with. I hate every man I know, simply because he is a man; and I never want really to meet, even to see, this one. But it’s great fun to be in love with him, to live in an inner world of one’s own.”

“Oh!” Once more Nigel writhed with jealousy.

“And that isn’t all.” Julia’s eyes grew even more burdened with dreams. “When I have to be kissed— At first I just set my teeth— Now I shut my eyes and imagine it’s the other.”

Nigel stood up. His face was white. His hands shook.

“And who, may I ask, is this fortunate person?”

“I don’t think I can tell you that.”

“You shall tell me. I have some rights. I was your first friend, and I loved you myself.”

Julia looked at him out of the corner of her eye. He had used the past tense, but he looked more like the present.

“I never thought I could breathe his name,” she whispered. “But I can tell you. It’s Cecil Rhodes.”

“Rhodes? Upon my word, you have good taste!” Then he burst into irrepressible laughter, and threw himself back in his chair.

“Oh, what a kid you are! What a baby! And I thought you were on the road to become a clever woman.”

Julia smiled mysteriously and picked up her crown. Her voice and eyes were more ingenuous than ever. “I told you, partly because you are my only man friend, the only man I don’t hate, and partly because you would have made love to me yourself in another minute. But if you tell Bridgit or Ishbel—”

“Never!” Once more Nigel laughed until the tears blotted his vision.

“Now I must go out and walk about and try to look like a duchess in a semitransparent shell. Will you give me your arm?”

XX

A WEEK later, Julia, who had gone to bed early, woke up suddenly at midnight. For a moment she lay wondering what had awakened her, used as she was to the long unbroken sleep of youth. She became conscious of a steady rhythmical sound in the next room, quite different from the prosaic music to which she was accustomed. When she realized that it was her husband pacing back and forth, back and forth, like a captured beast of the forest, she trembled for a moment, then invoked her nerve, slipped on a dressing-gown, and opened the door.

The lights were blazing. France, his coat off, his hair on end, was pacing up the room as she entered, and when he reached the wall, he flung his hands against it as if to push it outward. Then he turned and saw his wife. His eyes were bloodshot.

“Go back to bed,” he said thickly. “I don’t want you.”

“What _do_ you want?” Julia walked toward him, fear lost in her curiosity. “What is the matter, Harold? Are you ill? If you are, I must take care of you.”

He stared at her for a moment. There were times when he hated her, others when he was quite mad about her; during the intervals of varying length he did not think about her at all. To-night he suddenly experienced a new sensation. He needed a friend badly, and it was her business to fill any office he chose to impose upon her.

“Look here,” he said. “Would you do me a good turn?”

“Why, of course.”

“And use all the brains you’ve got and hold your tongue?”

“Try me.”

“Think you could fool Kingsborough?”

“Oh, quite easily.”

“Well, it’s this: I’ve got to get away for a time—out of this. I ain’t a child, ain’t used to walkin’ a straight line. Never had so many rules to live by since I was a small boy. Navy was nothin’ to it—and two years! _Two years_—” He clutched his hair with both hands and shouted: “I’ve got to get away for a bit! Do you hear? Got to get away! Ain’t used—”

“Do you mean that you want to go away and drink?”

France’s jaw fell. He took a step forward.

“What d’you mean? Who’s ever said—”

“No one in particular. But one learns a good deal in two years. Didn’t you used to drink now and again—disappear—”

“What if I did? I’ll wring your neck if you peach—”

“I haven’t the least idea of telling any one. It is the sort of family secret one doesn’t share. Where do you intend to go?”

“I’d hardly thought—it doesn’t matter. How can I fool him? If he found me out, he’d chuck me, cut me down to the last penny, he’s such a damned milksop—and in my shoes, in my shoes! Think for me. My brain’s no good. It’s on fire. Let him find out and it’s all up with you, too, my lady. It’s your business to stand by me. Wonder I didn’t think of that before.”

“You’ll go to Paris to-morrow to consult a heart specialist—”

“I tell you I’ve got to get out of this to-night. If I don’t, the roof’ll be off before breakfast. Do you suppose I can wait for a lot of palaver? I’d have been off before this, but I can’t think of a ghost of an excuse.”

“You can’t find a better than that, and you can go to-night. He knows your heart is weak, or was. I’ll tell him I became terrified and packed you off without delay. Get out your portmanteau, and I’ll look up the trains in Bradshaw.”

XXI

“HOW very odd!” said the duke, in a tone of manifest annoyance. “How very odd!”

They were in the library and Julia had imparted her information.

“Not at all,” she replied indifferently. “He would have gone before this, but feared to worry you—thought he would feel better. Last night he was so bad that I put him out of the house.”

“You put Harold out?”

“Yes. That will give you an idea of how he was feeling, when he was willing to mind me!”

“Hm! Why didn’t you go with him? A wife should never leave her husband for a day, particularly when he is ill!”

“We neither thought of that until the last minute—he was so nervous and there was only time to pack and catch the train—I was racking my brain over Bradshaw. I offered to follow, of course, but he said he preferred I should remain and keep our engagements here—he’s developed such a love of society, poor Harold—he seems haunted by the fear that we might drop out—you see, he was once a little wild—”

“Never really!” said the duke, emphatically. “Why shouldn’t he sow a few oats—a fine young fellow? Not that I approve; but it is natural enough.”

“Of course, poor dear, and he fancies that people think him far worse than he was, and he has an idea that I am useful to him—”

“Quite so. That is what you charming young wives are for. But I cannot think why Harold should feel obliged to go to Paris. We have heart specialists here.”

“Oh, but no one to compare with—with—Corot. And Harold knows him, you see, and has such confidence in him. He should have gone a week earlier, when—the—ah—thumping began.”

“Thumping? Dear me! Is Harold as bad as that?”

“Oh, it only means that he needs the right kind of tonic—after so long a siege of fever—and all that sport—and the political campaign—you see, he should have had himself looked over sooner; but at Bosquith there was only the country doctor, and then—he hated to leave us. I don’t think he’d have gone this morning if I hadn’t insisted. And he was dreadfully worried for fear you’d be angry.”

“Oh, well,” said the duke, mollified; “after all, he knows his own affairs best. Ah—wait a moment.”

Julia, who was escaping, breathless with the lies she had told, and longing for fresh air, halted, and the duke swung round in his chair and laid the fingers of one hand over the back of the other.

“Sit down again for a moment, my dear,” he said, not unkindly, although he had assumed what Julia called his preaching manner and his praying voice.

She sat down on the edge of a chair. The duke resumed.

“There is a matter I have had in my mind since the night of the party. I don’t like to scold you, for in the main you are a very good child and a dutiful wife—really, I have little fault to find with you. But—ah—you must have seen that I was much annoyed when I learned, that without my consent, and in spite of my expressed distaste for those two young women, you had asked them to my house.”

“Of course I knew you would be annoyed.”

“Indeed? I supposed you merely thoughtless!”

“Oh, no.” Julia turned her large brilliant gaze upon the small slate-colored eyes whose dullness was lighting with indignation. “I told you—perhaps you have forgotten—that as you have made me your hostess, and expect me to devote a large part of my energies to acquitting myself creditably, I feel that the position carries with it certain rights. So I invited my best friends.”

“But you knew that I disapproved of them!”

“Without reason. They are of your own class, and their reputations are immaculate. Why should I snub my friends? The invitations went out in the names of all three of us.”

“That has nothing to do with it. I do not wish you to associate with these young women. Their tendencies are dangerous. They have stepped out of their class and must take the consequences. Old orders would not change if men were firmer—When Harold returns I shall ask him to put his foot down. I cannot expect you to obey me, but you are bound to obey your husband.”

“I shall not in the matter of my friends. I have told him that if he interferes with me in any way, I’ll leave him and go into Ishbel’s shop.”

“WHAT?”

The duke half rose from his chair, then fell back, gasping. Where was the responsive amenable child of two summers agone?

The child continued. “Yes, I am doing my best. I am a dutiful wife, and I try to look and act” (she almost said “like a future duchess,” but her nimble mind leaped aside in time) “as if I had been entertaining all my life. I listen to Lady Arabella’s lectures, and Aunt Maria’s, to say nothing of yours and Harold’s. Even Lady Arabella says I’ve done very well. But I have a few rights of my own, and if I’m interfered with I’ll do as I said. I don’t care so much for all this. I’d rather be free like Ishbel.”

“You have no comprehension of the duties of a wife,” gasped the outraged duke, “or of your position. That a member of my family—”

“It is not so much that I am asking. Lots of women have lovers—”

“Lovers!” The duke almost strangled. “What does a child like you know about lovers? And in my house—you have never heard such a subject mentioned.”

“Oh? I can tell you that a lot of the women that have visited us—”

“Hush! I shall listen to no insinuations about my guests. You wicked little thing!”

“No. I was about to tell you that I’ve no intention of being wicked. I should hate a lover.”

“Indeed! I am happy to be reassured.” The duke always felt at his best when sarcastic, and he sat erect and looked severely at this naughty child who did not in the least comprehend what she was talking about.

“You are too young to argue with,” he said. “Not that I should ever think of arguing with a woman of any age. As regards Bridgit Herbert and Ishbel Jones, if your husband upholds you in your friendship with them I have nothing further to say except that I absolutely refuse to have them in my house again. But if Harold does not—this is what you must understand once for all: your husband’s word is law.”

Julia smiled.

“What do you mean?” The duke had a curious sinking in the pit of his stomach, and wondered if he too should not consult a specialist.

“You men are so funny.”

“Funny! Madam!”

“Yes, that is the word. Ishbel told me they were when I first came over, and I’ve found it out since for myself.”

“Funny!”

“Terribly funny.”

“If you don’t explain yourself—”

“I mean—for one thing—just one!—that you never find out we have our own way in spite of you. You think you are tyrants, and there isn’t one of you that can’t be led round by the nose—managed. Well, I don’t like that method. I won’t bother to manage any man. You’re not worth the trouble, and it’s a confession of inferiority on our part, anyhow. The more I see of you, the less inferior I feel. Besides, I enjoy speaking out, having things understood without a lot of beating round the bush. I’ve discovered that I’ve good fighting blood, and I’ve learned that women have plenty of resources outside of husbands; all that is necessary is to find the courage and the energy to enjoy them. But so many don’t. They’re all in love with one thing or another—husbands, lovers, society, fine houses, clothes, luxury—so they ‘manage’; and it has spoiled men, flattered them for centuries that they were the stronger and wiser sex; and, of course, demoralized women. No one can expand without the courage that comes of being able to speak the truth. Men can afford to be truthful whether they are or not, so they have gone ahead of us. I shall become demoralized all right, but not in that way. Not in any way that I can help. I shan’t lie—for myself—and I shan’t employ crooked methods. My mother told me to marry, and I did, because at that time I thought it right and natural to obey. Besides, I suppose one man’s much the same as another. I am resigned. I shan’t cry as some women do. One woman down at Bosquith last summer used to come into my room when I wanted to sleep, and cry out, ‘I hate life! Oh, how I hate life!’ She was afraid her husband would find out about her lover and she was sick of the lover besides. Now she has a new lover—”

“Hold your tongue!” The duke for once in his life thundered. “I forbid you to say another word—”

“Oh, I’m not very much interested in those things. What I intended to say was that I’ll do my duty, since married I am, but I’ll also do as I choose in some things. You can’t stop me. You might have done so in the days when Bosquith was built, but a lot of you seem to forget that times have changed—they change every minute, if you did but know it.”

“So it seems! I should think they did! _Great_ heaven!”

The duke paused a moment as if he expected heaven to respond. Receiving no inspiration, he concluded with dignity: “I must think this matter over. You may go.”

Julia almost ran out of the library and up to her own room. Then could the duke have seen her he would first have received another shock, then misinterpreted what he saw, and plumed himself. For Julia sat down and wept. She had lied hideously, worse still, glibly. And for the first time she quite realized that of late she had developed a poise, a fertility of resource in dealing with the mean tyrant that dwelt in the men to whom she was almost subject, that for the moment horrified her. Was it true that she was growing hard? She wished she had talked more confidentially with Nigel instead of flippantly dancing away from the subject. Was she no longer young? She had a real passion for truth. Were there to be no conditions in which she could indulge it? She glanced back over the past two years. There had been a time when she spoke the literal truth on all occasions; now she spoke it when it was feasible, or impressive, but rarely without forethought. It was seldom that she let herself go. She felt a hatred of civilization stir, wondered if in the whole planetary system there was a world where truth was the standard, where every man was himself, where the petty lies which made the great ones inevitable were unknown. A prophetic ray suggested that such conditions might involve complications unless human nature itself were of a new brand; but she was not in the mood to follow the thought to its logical finish. She wanted freedom here, and it appeared to be impossible of attainment. But at least she would strive for independence. To both of the men who shadowed her life she had read what the Americans called the riot act. That, at least, was something accomplished. She could not be accused of deceit, despised because she paid the tribute of her sex to their superiority.

Suddenly her spirits darted upward on wings. She was free of her husband for a week, perhaps longer. She bathed her eyes and danced about the room. But when she realized the source of her exultation she turned hastily from it, dressed, and went to Ishbel’s shop.

XXII

DURING the fortnight of France’s wassail the duke and Julia avoided each other by tacit consent. His Grace found himself uncommonly absorbed in politics, attended no less than three important dinners; and, ascertaining Julia’s engagements, dined at the House upon the one occasion when she dined at home. Therefore, were there no elaborate and recurring explanations of Harold’s prolonged absence, and singular epistolary neglect of his cousin. Julia, as she passed the duke on the stair, mentioned casually once or twice that her husband was detained by his doctor’s orders, might be for six or eight days to come.

The duke had resolved that he would not be betrayed into another war of words with this or any woman, nor would he recur to the subject of Julia’s offences until he had fully determined what to say to her, what course to take. And as for the life of him he could not make up his mind, she was left to her own devices.

And these devices were many. Julia resolved to forget her husband’s existence, and enjoy herself in new ways. She went to nine parties and danced until dawn. She saw Bridgit, Ishbel, and Nigel every day, rode on the tops of omnibuses, and lunched in A B C’s, Italian restaurants, and the Cheshire Cheese; these last three dissipations in company with Mr. Herbert. He also took her frequently to the National Gallery, and administered her first lessons in art. They even visited the Bond Street exhibitions and one or two private studios.

Nigel made no attempt to flirt with her; he was by no means sure that he still cared for her, so changed was she, although her magnetic charm was unaffected. But she would seem to have lost the ideal and unique quality that had roused his deeper feeling, and that gone, he felt no desire for the residuum. Certainly, it was not worth the sacrifice of his career; although of course it was very jolly to be the chosen friend of such a radiant creature (of whom men were beginning to take much notice), and he made up his mind to remain in London during Julia’s period of liberty, then return to Switzerland and his new book. He was rather glad of this test than otherwise, the opportunity to make sure that the only rival of his work had been routed. Sometimes, however, he wished that he might love Julia frantically, these days, thus receiving an additional proof of the might of art; but that hard bright surface repelled him. He felt that he no longer knew her, should not until life had taught her a more thorough knowledge of herself. Meanwhile, poor child, if she was determined to enjoy herself to the limit while her beast was on the loose, it was the least he could do to help her; so he lectured her on art in the morning and danced with her at night, or saw to it that she had the best partners in the room. The fortnight passed very quickly, and Julia, exerting her strong will, felt eighteen once more and quite happy.

France returned one morning early, looking rather the worse for wear. After a coaching from his wife he sought the duke, and, in his bluffest sailor manner, apologized for his abrupt departure and his failure to write: he had been put to bed and commanded to rest, undergone a series of examinations, been so blue and bored that he should have made his cousin as bad as himself. The duke was quite satisfied, and when France took the precaution to add that sooner or later he should be forced to return for another examination, his affectionate relative sighed and hoped Julia would awake to her duty and present another heir to the house of France.

During the next two years France disappeared some five or six times. His departures were preceded by excessive irritability; he returned as complacent as a cat after canary. Intermediately he was much himself. Julia became expert in seeing little of him. During the season she dragged him about with an unflagging energy that caused him to welcome the few hours he was able to snatch for sleep, and the duke unwittingly assisted her by demanding his daily presence in the House of Commons. During the shooting and hunting seasons his sportman’s fever took care of itself, although she subtly persuaded him to take up the rod, and to go to Scotland for deerstalking. She realized that if she continued to live with him a certain amount of “management” was inevitable. To tell the whole truth and live under the same roof with France was manifestly impossible, and the feeling of destiny (planetary) was too strong to permit her to leave him and achieve a complete independence. She thought as little as possible, read and studied a great deal, and played to the top of her capacity.

There was political excitement from time to time, and Julia learned that one secret of content was to forget her deep and hopeless disappointment in herself by keeping her mind animated with the greater affairs of the nation. No doubt this is the most fruitful source of woman’s interest in politics as they exist to-day. Unlike art, which compels true oblivion, it is a wholly artificial interest, since mentally unproductive; and of secondary import, since women are not permitted to employ their abilities in the service of their country. But although, no doubt, the women of the future will look back with much amusement upon the futile, the pathetically egotistic activities, of their predecessors, there is no question that an interest in public affairs, no matter how impersonal and unremunerative, save to the spirit, has the advantage of dissociating the mind from those mean and petty interests that send the average woman to the scrap heap.

Julia, even without the hints of Bridgit and Ishbel (Nigel went abroad soon after France’s return), would no doubt have discovered this philosophy for herself, for she came of a family distinguished in colonial politics since the islands were inhabited by the white man, and her present atmosphere was almost wholly political. The duke fussed more than any woman, France was forced to assume an interest he did not feel, and the greater number of their guests believed themselves to be making history. The duke, since his health would not permit him to be prime minister, found his compensation in sitting at the head of a table surrounded by those eminent Conservatives and liberal-Unionists whose names were in every man’s mouth. Therefore was Julia not only obliged to listen intelligently, but soon began to feel a keen pleasure in sharpening the edge of her mind and in holding opinions and drawing conclusions of her own. When the war between Spain and the United States broke out she took the American side, partly out of perversity, as everybody she met was passionately for the sister European power, even after the Government policy declared itself and laid its heavy hand on the press, partly because the increasingly modern tendencies of her mind led her to sympathize with the fluid imperfections of youth as against the atrophied faults of age. But although she found her opponents in argument immovable in their sympathy for Spain, and (congenital) disapproval of the United States, the experience gave her the deepest insight she was likely to have of the fundamental good humor of the English, as well as their sense of fair play. Unequivocally as they resented the conduct of the United States and hoped for her humiliation, it never occurred to them to visit their indignation on the individual, and London was full of Americans at the moment. One afternoon Julia was taking tea with Mrs. Winstone when Mrs. Bode came rustling in, flushed and indignant.

“What do you think?” she demanded, before she had taken the chair Mr. Pirie hastened to place for her. “Hannah Macmanus asked me to go with her to the private view this afternoon, and when I arrived at her house I found her with the Spanish colors pinned on her chest! Wouldn’t that jar you? And I an American—her guest! When I exploded—asked her why she didn’t send me word not to come, she seemed quite surprised, said she never let politics interfere with private friendships. But I bolted, couldn’t contain myself. I do think you English are too odd!”

“Oh, we’re merely a bit hoary,” said Pirie; “we’ve really lived, you see.”

“Hope your history’s not all behind you,” retorted Mrs. Bode. “Well, I’ll take a cup of tea. If _you_ were wearing the Spanish colors, Maria Winstone—”

“They don’t become my own coloring,” said Mrs. Winstone. “But, mind you, I’m all for Spain and hope you are going to be whipped. If we were quite alone I should confide that I didn’t care a straw one way or another, but fashion is fashion, and I’d no more dare defy it than I’d dare indulge in an individual style of dress—must be strictly contemporary or run the risk of looking my age.”

“I never know when you English are joking,” said Mrs. Bode, discontentedly. “Your humor (if you really have any) isn’t the least bit like ours.”

“Our effects are got by telling the brutal truth,” said Pirie.

But the excitement afforded by this war was brief, and soon forgotten. Kitchener’s reconquest of the Soudan was picturesque enough in its details to compel the attention of far happier mortals than Julia, but was hardly of a nature to disturb the serenity to which Pirie had made allusion. Fashoda caused but another ripple on the surface, and even when the moving finger appeared on the South African horizon the prevailing feeling was annoyance, and astonishment at the temerity of the Boers. In spite of the warnings of Lord Wolsely and General Butler, England persisted in looking at the new republic through the wrong end of the opera glass. Early in August, Julia, at a county dinner party, sat next to one of the most intelligent of the South African millionnaires then living in England. He had lived his life in South Africa, and mainly among the Boers; he had made his fortune there, and taken a prominent part in politics. No man should have known the characters of the Boers better than he, nor the advantages possessed by a hard persistent race that had learned every trick of native warfare from the negroes they had subdued. And yet he made a speech to Julia that she never forgot.

“You know, Mrs. France,” he said pleasantly, “we don’t want to kill anybody. We’ll just walk quietly through the Transvaal and take it.”

It was shortly after this dinner and the feeling of renewed confidence in England’s destiny it induced, that Julia suddenly lost all interest in politics. She had found many compensations in her life, and looked forward to many more. The duke had shown uncommon tact in intimating that her husband was quite equal to the task of controlling her, never returning to it himself; Julia, on the other hand, having no desire to live alone with her husband, took pains to fill creditably the duties of her position, and showed her host the pretty deference due his age and rank. So had wagged life for two more years. And then the most unexpected, the most incredible, the most completely disorganizing, thing happened. The duke fell in love and married.