LIBRARY 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF 
 
 CALIFORNIA 
 
 SANTA CRUZ 
 
 SANTA CRUZ 
 
 Gift oi 
 Lem C. Brown 
 
 SANTA CRUZ 
 
GOLDEN FLEECE 
 
OTHER BOOKS BY 
 DAVID GEAHAM PHILLIPS 
 
 r 
 
 The Great God Success, Her Serene Highness 
 A Woman Ventures 
 
The three descended the grand stairway rapidly 
 
GOLDEN FLEECE 
 
 The American Adventures of a 
 Fortune Hunting Earl 
 
 By 
 
 David Graham Phillips 
 
 ALDl 
 
 Illustrations by Harrison Fisher 
 
 r 
 
 McClure, Phillips $ Co. 
 
 New York 
 
 1903 
 
COPTRIGHT, 1903, BY 
 
 McCLURE, PHILLIPS & CO. 
 COPTRIGHT, 1903, BY CURTIS PUBLISHING Co. 
 
 Published, April, 1903, R 
 
3*31 
 
 ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 Facing 
 page 
 
 The three descended the grand stairway rapidly 
 
 Frontispiece 
 
 A strongly-built, fairish young man of perhaps six 
 
 and thirty 4 
 
 "My name is Longview " 16 
 
 Barney half a dozen chairs away glowering at Long- 
 view 26 
 
 He liked the very first glimpse of her .... 46 
 " As if we were a pair of new chimpanzees in a zoo " 70 
 
 "Just my rotten luck/' he muttered 90 
 
 "Then you're not a Buddhist or a Spiritualist?" . 130 
 
 "Forgive me it was all my fault yet not mine 
 
 good-bye " 164 
 
 Cosimo, Prince di Rontivogli 200 
 
 " I can imagine many extenuating circumstances " . 224 
 
 [v] 
 
ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 Facing 
 page 
 
 " I'll give the guinea one more chance " . 230 
 
 Found Nelly alone in the front parlour . . . .258 
 " You may ask, sir, but I'll not answer . . . .284 
 
 As soon as her father and mother were out of the 
 
 way . . .296 
 
 "I take to it like a duck to water" 314 
 
 [vi] 
 
GOLDEN FLEECE 
 
TWO hours after Surrey's letter came his sister 
 Gwen rode over to Beauvais House eager to 
 tell Evelyn the news of his luck in America. It 
 was almost five o'clock in the beautiful autumn after 
 noon, and she found Evelyn at tea on the porch that 
 looks out upon the Italian garden. 
 
 " It's settled," she said. " They're to be married 
 on the 5th of November only two months ! And 
 George says she is sweet and lovely not at all like the 
 Americans we know. And her dot is a million and a 
 half he calls it seven and a half, but he means in their 
 money, which sounds bigger, but counts smaller, than 
 ours. She'll get twice that when her father dies 
 and he's nearly seventy and not strong. And I'm so 
 glad and so sorry that I don't know whether to laugh 
 or cry." 
 
 " What's her name? You told me, but I forget." 
 Evelyn's hand was trembling just a little as she gave 
 Gwendoline a cup of tea. She spoke slowly, in the 
 
GOLDEN FLEECE 
 
 clear, monotonous, but agreeable, English tone. Her 
 voice, always calm, seemed stagnant. 
 
 " Dowie Helen Dowie. He sent me a proof of a 
 photograph they had taken together." Gwendoline 
 took a letter from the bosom of her shirtwaist, drew 
 from it the proof, and handed it to Evelyn. She took 
 it, lowered her head so that Gwen could not see her 
 face. She looked long and intently, and, if Gwen 
 had seen, she would have wondered how eyes could 
 be so full of tears without shedding a single one. 
 
 " Quite aristocratic," she said at last, giving it 
 back. " How much style those American girls 
 have!" 
 
 " But don't you think her rather pert-looking? >; 
 asked Gwen discontentedly. " She looks ill-tempered, 
 too. I'm sure we shan't get on. Mother and I are 
 making ready to go to Houghton Abbey at once. 
 We'd have a jolly uncomfortable time of it, I wager, 
 if she were to catch us at the Hall." 
 
 Evelyn was gazing into her tea and stirring it ab 
 sently. 
 
 " It seems a shame to have an American nobody 
 come in," continued Gwen, " and throw us out neck 
 and crop from a house where we've always lived. Now, 
 
CHAPTER ONE 
 
 if it were an English girl of our own class, you, 
 Evelyn, we shouldn't mind at least, not so much, 
 or in the same way." 
 
 Evelyn paled, and her lips contracted slightly. 
 
 " But it's of no use to think of that. We need her 
 money everything is in tatters at the Hall, and poor 
 George is down to the last seventy pounds." Gwen 
 laughed. " Do you remember what a time there was 
 getting the five hundred for his expenses out of Aunt 
 Betty? We've got to cable him another five hundred 
 he can't begin on her money the very minute he's 
 married, can he now? " 
 
 " Arthur must go over," said Evelyn suddenly, with 
 conviction. " We're worse off than you are. Old 
 Bagley was down yesterday. He and Arthur were 
 shut in for two hours, and Arthur's been off his feed 
 horribly ever since." 
 
 Gwen, two years younger than Evelyn, could not 
 conceal her feelings so well. She winced, and a look of 
 terror came into her big blue eyes. 
 
 " We can't hold on another year," continued Eve 
 lyn. " And it's quite impossible for Arthur to take 
 Miss Cadbrough. She's too hideous, and too hide 
 ously, hopelessly middle-class. She could never, never 
 
 [3] 
 
GOLDEN FLEECE 
 
 learn not to speak to ladies and gentlemen as if she 
 were a servant." 
 
 Evelyn pretended not to notice Gwen's unhappi- 
 ness. She glanced in at the great drawing room, with 
 splendid furniture, and ceiling wonderfully carved by 
 a seventeenth-century Italian. Then her eyes wan 
 dered away to the left, to the majestic wing showing 
 there, then on to the brilliant gardens, the fountains 
 and statuary. Her expression became bitter. " And 
 we've been undisturbed for nine centuries ! " she ex 
 claimed. 
 
 Gwen, in spite of her inward tumult, remembered 
 that this boast was rather " tall," that the Beauvais 
 family had, in fact, been changed radically several 
 times, and only the name had been undisturbed. Her 
 mind paused with a certain satisfaction on these little 
 genealogical discrepancies, because, though she was 
 the sister and the daughter of a duke, she was the 
 granddaughter of a brewer, who had begun life as an 
 apprentice. 
 
 " George wishes Arthur to go over to the wedding," 
 she said reluctantly, after a silence. 
 
 A servant appeared his gaudy livery was almost 
 shabby, but his manners were most dignified, and his 
 
 [4] 
 
8 
 
 s 
 
CHAPTER ONE 
 
 hair was impressively or ridiculously, if you please 
 plastered and streaked with powder. " His Lord 
 ship says he will have tea in his study, Your Lady 
 ship." 
 
 " Please tell him that Lady Gwendoline Ridley is 
 here," said Evelyn. 
 
 A few minutes later, a strongly built, fairish young 
 man of perhaps six and thirty came lounging out upon 
 the porch. He had pleasing, but far from handsome, 
 features a chin that was too long, and hung weakly, 
 instead of strongly, forward ; uncertain blue eyes, with 
 a network of the wrinkles of dissipation at the corners. 
 A large, frameless, stringless monocle was wedged, ap 
 parently permanently, into the angle of his right eye- 
 socket. He was dressed in shabby light grey flannels, 
 and he looked as seedy as his clothes. He shook hands 
 with Gwen. " Thanks. No tea. I'm taking whis 
 key," he said to Evelyn. And he seated himself 
 sprawlingly. The servant brought his whiskey and a 
 note for his sister. 
 
 " Is the man waiting for an answer? " she asked, 
 when she had read it. 
 
 " Yes, your ladyship." She left her brother and 
 Gwen alone. 
 
 [5] 
 
" 
 
 GOLDEN FLEECE 
 
 George is marrying the heiress," Gwen began. 
 So he wrote me," replied Frothingham sullenly. 
 
 " Evelyn says you must go and do likewise." 
 
 He scowled. " But I'd rather stay here and marry 
 you." 
 
 " Don't be silly," said Gwen, with a shrug of her 
 athletic young shoulders. " You've got nothing. I've 
 got nothing. So you must do your duty." 
 
 " Duty go hang ! " said Frothingham fretfully. 
 ;< Sometimes, do you know, Gwen, I come jolly near 
 envying those beggars that live in cottages, and keep 
 shops, and all that." 
 
 " Now, you're slopping, Arthur. You know you 
 don't envy them ; no more do I." 
 
 " Did Eve tell you old Bagley was down? " 
 
 " Yes. Ghastly wasn't it? " 
 
 Frothingham sighed. " I shouldn't be so cut up if 
 I'd had the fun of spending it." 
 
 " You did spend a lot of it." She was thinking 
 what a great figure the young Earl had cut in her 
 girlhood days ; she had always listened greedily when 
 her brother, with admiring envy, or Evelyn, with sis 
 terly pride, talked of his exploits on the turf, and let 
 us say elsewhere, to shorten a long story. 
 
 [6] 
 
CHAPTER ONE 
 
 " Only a few thousands that weren't worth the keep 
 ing," said Frothingham, a faint gleam of satisfaction 
 appearing in the eye that was shielded by the monocle 
 he liked to remember his " career," and he liked the 
 women to remind him of it in this flattering way. 
 " All I really got was the bill for the governor's larks, 
 and his governor's, and his governor's governor's. 
 It's what I call rotten unfair jolly rotten unfair. 
 The fiddling for them the bill for me." 
 
 " Buck up, Artie," said Gwen, stroking him gently 
 with her riding whip. " See how Georgie has faced it. 
 And perhaps you won't draw such a bad one, either. 
 She couldn't be worse than Cadbrough." 
 
 " But I want you, Gwen. I'm used to you, you 
 know and that's everything in a wife. I hate sur 
 prises, and these American beggars are full of 
 
 Evelyn came back. " Go away somewhere, both of 
 you," she said. " Charley Sidney's just driving up. 
 I wish to talk with him about the States." 
 
 Gwen paled and flushed ; Frothingham grunted and 
 scowled. They rose, made a short cut across the gar 
 den, and were hidden by the left wing of the house. 
 Almost immediately the servant announced " Mr. Sid- 
 
 [7] 
 
GOLDEN FLEECE 
 
 ney," and stood deferentially aside for a tall, thin 
 American, elaborately Anglicised in look and dress, 
 and, as it soon appeared, in accent. He had a narrow, 
 vain face, browned and wrinkled by hard riding in 
 hard weather in those early morning hours that should 
 be spent in bed if one has lingered in the billiard-room 
 with the drinks and smokes until past midnight. 
 
 " Ah, Lady Evelyn ! " He shook hands with her, 
 and bowed and smirked. " I'm positively perishing 
 for tea." 
 
 " You mean whiskey ? " 
 
 " Ah, yes to be sure. I see there is whiskey." 
 
 Evelyn's manner, which had been frank and equal 
 before her friend and her brother, had frozen for Sid 
 ney into a shy stiffness not without a faint suggestion 
 of superior addressing inferior. She had known Sid 
 ney for the ten years he had lived within two miles 
 of Beauvais House, but well, he wasn't " one of 
 us " exactly ; he had a way of bowing and of pro 
 nouncing titles that discouraged equality. The con 
 versation dragged in dreary, rural fashion through 
 gossip of people, dogs, and horses, until she said: 
 
 " Have you heard the news of Surrey ? " 
 
 " No is His Grace coming home ? ' : 
 
 [8] 
 
CHAPTER ONE 
 
 " He's marrying a Miss Dowie, of New York. Do 
 you know her? ' : 
 
 " I've heard of her. You know, I've not been there 
 longer than a week at a time for fifteen years." Sid 
 ney put on his extreme imitation-English air. " I 
 loathe the place. They don't know how to treat a 
 gentleman. And the lower classes ! " He lifted his 
 eyebrows and shook his head. He was at his most en 
 ergetic when, in running down his native land to his 
 English acquaintances, he reached the American 
 " lower classes." 
 
 Evelyn concealed the satire which longed to express 
 itself in her face. She despised Sidney and all the 
 Anglicised Americans; and, behind their backs, she 
 and her friends derided them perhaps to repay them 
 selves for the humiliation of accepting hospitalities 
 and even more concrete favours from " those Amer 
 ican bounders." The story among Sidney's upper- 
 class English tolerators was that his father had kept 
 a low public house in New York or San Francisco, or 
 " somewhere over there " they were as ignorant of 
 the geography of the United States as they were of 
 the geography of Patagonia. 
 
 " So he's to marry Dowie's daughter ? " continued 
 
 [9] 
 
GOLDEN FLEECE 
 
 Sidney. " He was brakeman on a railway thirty years 
 ago." 
 
 "How you Americans do jump about!" said 
 Evelyn, forgetting that Sidney prided himself on no 
 longer being an American. " He must be clever." 
 
 " A clever rascal, probably," replied Sidney spite 
 fully. " Over here he'd have been put into jail for 
 what they honour him for over there." 
 
 " We've many of the same sort, no doubt," said 
 Evelyn, thinking it tactful to hold aloof when a son 
 was abusing his mother. 
 
 " Yes, but usually they're gentlemen and do things 
 in a gentlemanly way." 
 
 "Mr. Dowie is rich?" 
 
 " Just now he is they say." Sidney had the rich 
 man's weakness for denying, or at least casting 
 doubt upon, the riches of other rich men. He knew 
 that his was the finest and most valuable wealth in the 
 world, and he would have liked to believe that it was 
 the only wealth in the world. " I trust the Duke has 
 looked sharp to the settlements." 
 
 ' Why ? " asked Evelyn, preparing to make mental 
 notes. 
 
 " He may never get anything but what's settled on 
 
 [10] 
 
CHAPTER ONE 
 
 him and her now. Dowie is more or less of a specu 
 lator and may go broke. But that's not the only dan 
 ger in marrying an American heiress. You see, Lady 
 Evelyn, over there they have the vulgarest possible 
 notions of rank and titles. And often, if there isn't 
 a cash settlement when they ' buy the title,' as they 
 describe it, they refuse to give up anything. Many of 
 their rich men have the craze for founding colleges 
 and asylums and libraries. They reason that they've 
 got the title in the family, therefore it isn't necessary 
 to pay for it; and so they leave all their money to 
 build themselves a monument. Dishonourable, isn't 
 it ? But they stop at nothing." 
 
 " Then," said Evelyn, " an American heiress isn't 
 an heiress so long as her father is alive ? " 
 
 " Exactly. It's misleading to call her an heiress. 
 She simply has hopes." 
 
 " I hope Surrey knows this." 
 
 " If he doesn't it's his own fault. I cautioned His 
 Grace before he sailed." 
 
 " That reminds me, Mr. Sidney. Arthur may be 
 going over to the wedding. Could you " 
 
 " I'd be delighted," interrupted Sidney. " Any 
 thing I could do for Lord Frothingham it would be 
 
GOLDEN FLEECE 
 
 a pleasure to do. I can give him some useful letters, 
 I think. Will he travel? " 
 
 " Possibly I don't know. He has no plans as 
 
 yet." 
 
 " I shall give him if he will do me the honour of 
 accepting them only a few letters. The wisest plan 
 is a proper introduction to the very best people. Then 
 all doors will be open to him." 
 
 " The Americans are hospitable to everyone, are 
 they not? " 
 
 " Not to younger sons any more. And not to un 
 accredited foreigners. They've had their fingers jolly 
 well burned. I knew of one case a girl quite a 
 ladylike person, though of a new family from the in 
 terior. She married a French valet masquerading as 
 a duke." 
 
 " Poor creature," said Evelyn, smiling with amused 
 contempt. 
 
 " Yes, and another girl married or thought she 
 married a German royal prince. And when she got 
 to Germany she found that she'd bought a place as 
 mere morganatic wife, with no standing at all." 
 
 " Fancy ! What a facer ! " 
 
 " And she never got her money back not a 
 
 [12] 
 
CHAPTER ONE 
 
 penny," continued Sidney. " But, like you, I don't 
 sympathise with these upstart people who try to 
 thrust themselves out of their proper station. The 
 old families over there and there are a few gentle 
 folk, Lady Evelyn, though they're almost lost in the 
 crowd of noisy upstarts never have such humiliating 
 experiences in their international marriages." 
 
 " Naturally not," said Evelyn. 
 
 " But, as I was about to say, a foreigner with a 
 genuine title, the head of a house of gentle people, is 
 received with open arms. Lord Frothingham would 
 be overwhelmed with hospitalities. My friends would 
 see to that." 
 
 After a few minutes, without any impoliteness on 
 Evelyn's part, Sidney began to feel that it was time 
 for him to go. As he disappeared Gwen and Arthur 
 came strolling back. 
 
 " What a noisome creature Sidney is ! " said Evelyn. 
 " But he'll be of use to you, Arthur." 
 
 " Did he talk about the old families of America and 
 the gentle birth? " asked Gwen. Her eyes were curi 
 ously bright, and her manner and tone were agi 
 tated. 
 
 " All that again." 
 
 [13] 
 
GOLDEN FLEECE 
 
 " He's an ass a regular tomtit," growled Froth- 
 ingham. 
 
 " I should think he'd learn," said Evelyn, " that 
 we don't take him and his countrymen up because 
 they're well born we know they aren't." 
 
 " If those that are sensible enough to fly from that 
 beastly country are like Sidney," said Gwen, " what 
 a rowdy lot there must be at home." She spoke so 
 nervously that Evelyn, abstracted though she was, 
 glanced at her and noticed how pale and peaked she 
 was. When she had ridden away Evelyn looked at 
 her brother severely she was only three and twenty, 
 but she managed him, taking the place of both their 
 parents, who were long dead. 
 
 " You've been making love to Gwen," she exclaimed 
 reproachfully. " You should be ashamed of your 
 self." 
 
 Frothingham removed his monocle, wiped it care 
 fully in a brilliant plaid silk handkerchief, and slowly 
 fitted it in place. Then he sent a mocking, cynical 
 gleam through it at his sister. " You forget," he 
 drawled, " that I caught you and Georgie kissing 
 each other and crying over each other the day he 
 went off to the States." 
 
 [14] 
 
CHAPTER ONE 
 
 Evelyn flushed. " How does that excuse you ? " 
 she demanded, undismayed. 
 
 He was silent for a moment, then with tears in his 
 eyes and a break in his habitual cynical drawl, " I 
 can't go, Eve. I can't give her up." 
 
 Evelyn's heart ached, but she did not show it. She 
 simply asked in her usual tone of almost icy calm, 
 " Where's the cash to come from ? " 
 
 He collapsed helplessly into a chair. There was no 
 alternative he must go ; he must marry money. He 
 owed it to his family and position ; also, he wanted it 
 himself what is a " gentleman " without money ? 
 And why, if he did not bestir himself he might actu 
 ally have to go to work ! And " what the devil could 
 I work at? I might go out to service I'd shine as a 
 gentleman's gentleman or I might do something as 
 a billiard marker " 
 
 With such dangers and degradations imminent, to 
 think of love was sheer madness. Frothingham 
 sighed and stared miserably through his monocle at 
 the peacocks squawking their nerve- jarring predic 
 tions of rain. 
 
 [15] 
 
II 
 
 ON the second day out, in the morning, Froth- 
 ingham was at the rail, his back to the sea, 
 his glassed gaze roaming aimlessly up and 
 down the row of passengers stretched at full length 
 in steamer chairs. He became conscious of the ma- 
 noeuvrings of a little man in a little grey cap and little 
 grey suit, with little grey side-whiskers that stood out 
 like fins on either side of his little grey face. Each 
 time this little person passed it was with a nervous 
 smile at Frothingham, and a nervous wiping of the 
 lips with the tip of his tongue. When he saw that 
 Frothingham, or, rather, Frothingham's monocle, was 
 noting him, he halted in front of him. He was too 
 painfully self-conscious to see that the Englishman's 
 look was about as cordial as that of a bald-headed man 
 watching the circlings of a bluebottle fly. 
 
 " The Earl of Frothingham, is it not? " said he in 
 a thin, small voice, his American overlaid with the 
 most un-English of English accents. 
 
 [16] 
 
name is Longview* 
 
CHAPTER TWO 
 
 Frothingham moved his head without relaxing from 
 his stolid, vacant look. 
 
 " My name is Longview. I had the honour of meet 
 ing you at the hunt at Market Harboro two years ago 
 my daughter and I." 
 
 Frothingham stared vaguely into space, little 
 Longview looking up at him with an expression of 
 ludicrously alarmed anxiety. " Oh, yes," he drawled 
 finally. And he extended his hand with condescend 
 ing graciousness. " I remember." 
 
 Longview expelled a big breath of relief. He was 
 used to being forgotten, was not unused to remaining 
 forgotten. " You may recall," he hastened on, eager 
 to clinch himself in an earl's memory, " we had your 
 cousin, Lord Ramsay's place, Cedric Hall, that 
 year." 
 
 Frothingham remembered perfectly the rich, 
 Anglicised American who fed his neighbours well, was 
 generous in lending mounts and traps, and was, alto 
 gether, a useful and not unamusing nuisance. Rich, 
 but how rich? 
 
 " And your daughter ? " said Frothingham he re 
 called her indistinctly as young, hoydenish, and a dar 
 ing jumper. 
 
 [17] 
 
GOLDEN FLEECE 
 
 " She is with me," said Longview, delighted to be 
 convinced that he was remembered, and remembered 
 distinctly and by a Gordon-Beauvais ! " It would 
 give me great pleasure to present you." 
 
 As they went down the deck the little man peered 
 at everyone with a nervous little smile " as if he 
 were saying, ' Don't kick me, please. I mean well,' ' 
 thought Frothingham. In fact, back of the peering 
 and the smile was the desire that all should see that he 
 had captured the Earl. They entered the library and 
 advanced toward a young woman swathed in a huge 
 blue cape, her eyes idly upon a book. 
 
 " Honoria, my dear," said Longview, as uneasy as 
 if he were speaking to the young woman without hav 
 ing been introduced to her, " you remember Lord 
 Frothingham ? " 
 
 Honoria slowly raised her eyelids from a pair of 
 melancholy, indifferent grey eyes, and slightly in 
 clined her head. The men seated themselves on either 
 side of her ; Longview rattled on in his almost hyster 
 ical way for a few minutes, then fluttered away. 
 Honoria and Frothingham sat silent, she looking at 
 her book, he looking at her. 
 
 " You are going home ? " he said when he saw that 
 
 [18] 
 
CHAPTER TWO 
 
 she would not " lead," no matter how long the silence 
 might continue. 
 
 " No," she replied. " We are English at least, 
 my father is." 
 
 "And you?" 
 
 She just moved her shoulders, and there was the 
 faintest sneer at the corner of her decidedly pretty 
 mouth. " I don't know what does it matter about 
 a woman? I've lived in England and France since I 
 was five, except a year and a half in America. Father 
 detests the country and the people. He was natural 
 ised in England last year. I believe he decided that 
 his social position, won through his being an Amer 
 ican, was sufficiently established to make it safe for 
 him to change." 
 
 Frothingham smiled. As he was used to the freest 
 and frankest criticisms of parents and other near rel 
 atives by fellow-countrymen of his own class, it did 
 not impress him as unfilial that a daughter should thus 
 deride a father. Honoria became silent, and appar 
 ently oblivious of his presence. 
 
 " I've never been to America," he said, hoping to 
 resurrect the dead conversation. " I'm looking for 
 ward to it with much pleasure. We have many 
 
 [19] 
 
GOLDEN FLEECE 
 
 Americans in our neighbourhood such jolly 
 people." 
 
 " I know few Americans." Honoria looked disdain 
 ful. " And they are like us, the most of them ex 
 patriated. They say their country is a good place to 
 make money in, but a horrible place to live crude 
 and ill-mannered, full of vulgar people that push in 
 everywhere, and the servants fancying they're ladies 
 and gentlemen." 
 
 " I hope it's no worse to live in than England," 
 said Frothingham. "You know we're always flying 
 to the Continent to escape the climate and the dul- 
 ness. And our middle classes are very uppish nowa 
 days, don't you think? " 
 
 " I detest England." Honoria put the first em 
 phasis into her voice, but it was slight. 
 
 " Beastly hole, except for a few weeks in the spring, 
 ain't it? If it wasn't for the hunting it would be 
 deserted." 
 
 He saw her cold, regular features light up. " I 
 love hunting," she said. " It's the one thing that 
 can make me forget myself, and everything except 
 just being alive and well." Then her face shadowed 
 and chilled, and she looked at her book so signifi- 
 
 [20] 
 
CHAPTER TWO 
 
 cantly that Frothingham was forced to rise and 
 leave. 
 
 At luncheon the man in the chair next him Bar 
 ney, who had told him in the first half -hour of their 
 acquaintance all about his big dry-goods shop in 
 Chicago said : " I saw you talking to Longview on 
 deck. Is he a friend of yours? " 
 
 " An acquaintance," replied Frothingham. He 
 rather liked Barney because he was shrewd and hu 
 mourous, and treated him in an offhand fashion 
 that was amusing in a " tradesman " from Amer 
 ica. 
 
 " He's a low-down snob," said Barney, encouraged 
 by Frothingham's disclaimer. " One of those fellows 
 that think their own country ain't good enough for 
 them. I was glad when he got himself naturalised 
 over in your country. You're welcome to him. What 
 kind of people does he herd with in England ? ' 
 
 " We like him very well, I believe. He seems to be 
 an agreeable chap." 
 
 " I suppose he kowtows and blows himself, and so 
 they let him hang onto the tailboard he ain't heavy 
 and don't take up much room. His grandfather stole 
 with both hands, and put it in real estate. Then his 
 
 [21] 
 
GOLDEN FLEECE 
 
 father made quite a bunch in the early railroad days. 
 And now this fellow's posing as an aristocrat. If he 
 wasn't rich who'd notice him? ' : 
 
 " Then he's rich? " inquired Frothingham. 
 
 " Yes and no," replied Barney, his rich man's jeal 
 ousy visibly roused. " There was a big family of 
 them. He's got maybe a couple of millions or three. 
 That ain't much in these days. You heard about his 
 knockout? ' : 
 
 " Has he lost part of his money ? " 
 
 " I thought everybody knew that story it was in 
 all the papers. No, it wasn't money worse than 
 that, from his point of view. His daughter she's 
 with him on the ship fell in love with the second son 
 of some marquis or other. But he didn't have any 
 thing, and I believe you titled people ain't allowed to 
 work. Longview was red-headed wouldn't give his 
 daughter a cent unless she married a big title. And 
 then the young man's older brother died." 
 
 " Was it the Marquis of Dullingf ord ? ' : 
 
 " Yes, that was it. And right on top of it his elder 
 brother's two sons were drowned, and he came into the 
 title and estates. And what does he do but up and 
 marry an English girl that he'd been struck on all the 
 
CHAPTER TWO 
 
 time, but couldn't marry because he was so poor. 
 Longview nearly went crazy at missing the chance. 
 And his daughter it must have made her mighty 
 sour to find out that the fellow had been only pretend 
 ing to be in love with her, and was really out for her 
 cash, and didn't care a rap about her. A low pup, 
 wasn't he? " 
 
 Frothingham began to detest Barney " an im 
 pudent, malicious beggar," he thought. He gave him 
 his monocle's coldest stare. 
 
 " No," went on Barney, unchilled, " Longview's not 
 so rich. I could buy him twice over, and not take a 
 cent of it out of my business. But I want to see any 
 scamp, foreign or domestic, hanging round my 
 daughter for her money. She'll get nary a red till I 
 shuffle off. And she'll get mighty little then if she 
 don't marry to suit me. That's our way." 
 
 Frothingham changed his mind about dropping 
 Barney. He had begun to modify the low view of him 
 as soon as he heard that he had a daughter, and 
 " could buy Longview twice over," and leave the big 
 business " seventy stores under one roof " intact. 
 " Miss Barney may be worth looking at," he reflected. 
 "And her papa might relent about settlements. I 
 
 [23] 
 
GOLDEN FLEECE 
 
 suspect he isn't above loving a lord he's too good an 
 American for that." 
 
 What Barney had told gave him the key to Hon- 
 oria. He felt genuine sympathy for her their sor 
 rows were similar. " Poor creature," he thought. 
 " No wonder she's so down in the mouth." After 
 luncheon he met her father on deck, and did not re 
 pel his advances. " But," he said to himself, " it 
 don't do to be too friendly with these beggars. It's 
 like shaking hands with your tailor. He don't think 
 you've pulled him up, but that you've let yourself 
 down." 
 
 To the " beggar " he said : 
 
 " I looked all round the dining room, but I didn't 
 see you and your daughter." 
 
 Longview smiled proudly. " We have our meals in 
 our sitting room," he replied. " We dislike being 
 stared at, and mixed in with a crowd of eating people. 
 We like privacy. We'd be glad to have you join us." 
 
 Frothingham's first impulse was to accept. It 
 would cost him nothing probably he'd get his wine 
 and mineral water and cigars free. And he'd have a 
 rare chance at Honoria. But her face came before his 
 mind. He decided that he would do well to wait until 
 
CHAPTER TWO 
 
 he could learn whether she was really part of the in 
 viting " we." 
 
 Although he was not welcomed, but merely toler 
 ated, he seated himself on the extension of a vacant 
 chair beside her and talked hunting, which, as she 
 had shown him, was her weakness. She was soon inter 
 ested, and she unbent toward him so far that, when 
 her father came and renewed his invitation, she joined 
 in it. Just as Frothingham accepted he saw Barney 
 half a dozen chairs away glowering at Longview. 
 " I'll offend Barney, no doubt," he said to himself. 
 " But I'll risk it. I must play the cards I have in my 
 hand." 
 
 Barney came into the smoke-room late in the even 
 ing as he was sitting there, having a final whiskey 
 and water before going to bed. " Won't you have a 
 high ball or something? " he asked, making room for 
 Barney's broad form. 
 
 " No, I never touch liquor. Don't allow it in my 
 house. It's no good no business man ought to touch 
 it." 
 
 " I suppose not," replied Frothingham, feeling that 
 here was new evidence of the essentially degrading na 
 ture of business. 
 
 [25] 
 
GOLDEN FLEECE 
 
 " I missed you at dinner," Barney went on. 
 
 " The Longviews invited me to feed with them," 
 replied Frothingham carelessly. " They eat in their 
 sitting room. Sorry to leave you, but the service is 
 much better." 
 
 Barney's maxillary muscles expanded and con 
 tracted with anger. He half snorted, half laughed. 
 " You might know," he said, " that that shark-faced 
 snob would invent a new way of making himself ridic 
 ulous. So, the general dining room ain't good enough 
 for him, eh? He is a swell, ain't he? I should think 
 he and his no, leave the young lady out of it I 
 should think he'd be ashamed to fish for you so 
 openly." Barney's tone softened apologetically, 
 greatly to Frothingham's surprise, as he added : " I 
 don't blame you, Mr. Frothingham. I understand 
 how it is with you titled people in your country. I 
 don't blame anybody for walking round on human 
 necks if their owners '11 allow it. But we feel differ 
 ently about all those kind of things." 
 
 Frothingham smiled conciliatingly. " Oh, I say, 
 now ! I don't see anything to make a row over. The 
 beggar's a right to eat where he pleases, hasn't he? " 
 
 " Of course he has, and to stick his tongue out at 
 
 [26] 
 
Barney half a dozen chairs away glowering at 
 
 Longview 
 
CHAPTER TWO 
 
 all the rest of us, as he does it. You don't understand. 
 It ain't what he does. It's why he does it. We Amer 
 icans can't stand those kind of airs." 
 
 " It seems very mysterious to me," confessed Froth- 
 ingham. " I admit I don't understand your country." 
 
 " Oh, you're all right," reassured Barney, slapping 
 Frothingham's leg cordially. " I never thought I'd 
 like one of you titled fellows. I despised you all for a 
 useless set of nobodies and nincompoops. And when 
 ever my womenfolks got to talking about that kind of 
 thing I always sat on 'em, and sat hard I'm a 
 hard sitter when I want to be. But I like you, 
 young man. You're more an American than an 
 Englishman, just as Longview's more English than 
 American he ain't American at all. You talk like 
 an American. You behave like an American. And 
 when you've been in America long enougK to wear 
 your clothes out, and get some that fit you, you'll look 
 like an American." 
 
 " Thanks," said Frothingham drily. 
 
 " You don't like it ? " Barney laughed good-hu- 
 mouredly. " Well, I don't blame you. You're judg 
 ing America by Longview and me. That ain't fair. 
 I'm a rough one never had a chance first thing I 
 
 [27] 
 
GOLDEN FLEECE 
 
 remember is carrying the swill buckets out to feed the 
 hogs before sun-up when I still wore slips. But I mean 
 right. And I've got a son and a daughter that are a 
 real gentleman and a real lady, and don't you forget 
 it." 
 
 " Oh, you're all right," said Frothingham, slap 
 ping Barney on the leg Frothingham was a senti 
 mental dog where his pocket and his pleasure were not 
 concerned, and he liked Barney's look as he spoke of 
 himself and the hogs, and his children. 
 
 " You don't want to go back to that little old island 
 of yours," continued Barnay, " without seeing Chi 
 cago. There 9 s a town ! And I'll give you the time of 
 your life. I want you to meet my family." 
 
 " I hope I shall," said Frothingham. He was smil 
 ing to himself evidently Barney wasn't above a 
 weakness for a lord. " It was a good stroke any way 
 you look at it, my going with the Longviews," he re 
 flected. " It's made Barney jealous, and he thinks 
 more of me than ever." 
 
 He divided his time unevenly between the Long- 
 views and Barney. He wished to introduce Barney to 
 them, but Longview hysterically refused. " It's all 
 right for you, Frothingham," he explained. " But we 
 
 [28] 
 
CHAPTER TWO 
 
 can't afford to do it. How'd you like to be introduced 
 to middle-class English ? " 
 
 " Oh, I shouldn't mind. I'd just forget 'em the 
 next time we met. The beggars 'd expect it and 
 wouldn't think of annoying me. " 
 
 " Precisely precisely," said Longview. " But 
 our that is the American middle-classes are differ 
 ent. They don't understand differences of social posi 
 tion, or pretend not to. If this Barney person were 
 presented to us, he probably wouldn't take the cut 
 when we met again, but would come straight up to us. 
 You've no idea how impudent they are." 
 
 " But why do you call him middle-class ? Ain't he 
 rich? " asked Frothingham. 
 
 Longview looked at him tragically. " Birth and 
 breeding count with us just as I mean count in 
 America just as in England." 
 
 " Gad, they don't count in England any more, ex 
 cept against one. But we can't get it out of our 
 heads that you Americans go in for equality and all 
 that sort of thing." 
 
 " Not at all. Not at all," Longview protested. 
 " The lines are the more closely drawn because there 
 are no official lines." 
 
 [29] 
 
GOLDEN FLEECE 
 
 " But what's the matter with Barney ? He seems 
 right enough. I've got uncles that are worse. Gad, 
 there's one of 'em I could get rich on if I could cage 
 him and show him at a shilling a look." 
 
 " My dear Frothingham, this Barney keeps a retail 
 shop. Even in New York they draw the line at retail 
 shops." 
 
 " It's very mysterious." Frothingham shook his 
 head. " I fear I shall never learn. Why don't they 
 put it all in a book, as we do? Then we could take it 
 at the university instead of Greek." 
 
 He looked at Honoria. She was giving her plate 
 a scornful smile. Her father looked at her also, and 
 reddened as he noted her expression, and shifted the 
 conversation abruptly to the day's run. Frothingham 
 was becoming interested in Honoria, now that he had 
 assured himself of her eligibility. She was not beau 
 tiful, not especially distinguished-looking. But she 
 had as little interest in him as in the rest of her 
 surroundings, and that piqued him. Then, too, 
 her figure was graceful and strong; and when her 
 face did light up it showed strength of character, and 
 either what she said or the way she said it created a 
 vivid impression of personality. He soon felt that 
 
 [30] ' 
 
CHAPTER TWO 
 
 she liked him. Her manner toward him was friendlier 
 far than her manner toward her father, her lack of 
 respect for whom was scantily concealed. 
 
 The night before they landed she and Frothing- 
 ham sat on deck late, her father dozing in a chair at 
 a discreet distance. Both were depressed the sense 
 that they were once more about to plunge into the 
 whirlpool of life made each sad. Honoria was re 
 membering the past; Frothingham was brooding over 
 the future. If he had dared he would have proposed 
 to her. " She'd make a satisfactory wife," he said to 
 himself. " She's just enough English to understand 
 me and to make my people like her. She wouldn't get 
 on their nerves. And she doesn't talk through her 
 nose except when she's excited. She's a little too clever 
 but a steady goer, once the harness is on. If I 
 could get her it would be good business, good swift 
 business." 
 
 " You're a queer sort," he said to her suddenly. 
 " Most girls are full of getting married. But I don't 
 believe you give it a thought." 
 
 " I sha'n't ever marry," she replied. 
 
 He laughed. " Oh, I say, that's nonsense. Every 
 girl must marry. You may as well make up your 
 
 [31] 
 
GOLDEN FLEECE 
 
 mind to it, close your eyes, shut your teeth, and 
 dash in." 
 
 " You might not think it," she said after a pause, 
 " but I am like you English I'm horribly, incurably 
 sentimental. I know it's foreign to my bringing up, 
 but " Her jaw set, and her eyes fixed upon some 
 thing visible only to her in the blackness beyond the 
 rail. " My bringing up was all wrong and rotten," 
 she went on presently. " I don't know just how or 
 where, but I know it's so. I began to feel it dimly 
 when I visited my aunt in America four years ago. 
 My mother died when I was a baby, and I was trained 
 by my father and governesses governesses that 
 
 suited him. My father But I needn't tell you, 
 
 and you probably don't sympathise with me. His 
 one idea in life is social position. It seems to me a 
 contemptible ambition for a man. With women 
 there's some excuse for it. We're naturally petty, f 
 And, so far as I can see it, as the world is made up, 
 if we haven't got that we haven't got anything. We 
 can't have any other ambition it's the only one open 
 to us. Well, I haven't got even ambition. I want 
 that is, I wanted " 
 
 She paused again, resisting the mood that was urg- 
 
 [32] 
 
CHAPTER TWO 
 
 ing her on to confidence. " By Jove," thought Froth- 
 ingham, " it wouldn't be hard for a man to like her." 
 
 " No matter what it was I wanted," she went on, 
 " I didn't get it and sha'n't, ever." She turned her 
 face toward him. " You may misunderstand me 
 may think I am in love and hopelessly disappointed 
 there's a story of that kind going round. But I'm not 
 in love. I was but I'm not now." 
 
 " Do you think one ever gets over it? " he asked ab 
 sently. 
 
 She did not answer. 
 
 " I'm afraid not at least, not thoroughly," he an 
 swered himself. There were two faces out there in 
 the blackness into which they were staring, but each 
 was seeing only one. 
 
 " One ought to get over it one must" she said 
 slowly, " when one finds that the person one cared for 
 is a bad lot. But " she sighed under her breath 
 " I might marry, yes, would, if I needed a home or 
 money. But I don't. So I shall be much better con- 
 ' tented alone. I'll never believe deeply in any human 
 being again." 
 
 " You mustn't take life so seriously," he said 
 
 gently. " You'll change before " 
 
 [33] 
 
GOLDEN FLEECE 
 
 "So my father thinks." She looked at Froth- 
 ingham with a mischievous, audacious smile. " He 
 thinks I shall change immediately and marry 
 you ! " 
 
 Frothingham gasped. 
 
 " How funny and fishlike you look," she said, 
 laughing at him. " You are in no danger. Do you 
 suppose I'd have said that if I'd had you on my list? 
 No, I like you, but but! ' 
 
 " You may change your mind," he recovered him 
 self sufficiently to say. 
 
 " No you're safe. I spoke out because I wish to 
 be friends with you. I don't especially admire your 
 purpose in going to America. But at least you're 
 frank about it." 
 
 " I? Why, Miss Longview I " Frothing 
 ham began to protest, pushing at his dislodging eye 
 glass. 
 
 " Don't prevaricate. You wouldn't do it well. As 
 I was about to say, I wish to be friends with you. 
 And it's impossible for a woman and a man to be 
 friends when either is harbouring matrimonial de 
 signs against the other, or fancies the other is har 
 bouring them." 
 
 [34] 
 
CHAPTER TWO 
 
 " I certainly have to marry somebody," said Froth- 
 ingham mournfully. 
 
 " Yes I know. Father explained about you. He's 
 up on every titled family in England above the baron 
 ets. And he's determined that I shall be a countess 
 at the very least. He says he has the money to buy it 
 and possibly he has. But " she was intent upon 
 the blackness again " I shall never go back to 
 England. I shall stay in America with a visit to 
 Paris and the Riviera now and then." 
 
 " That '11 cheer your father when he hears it," 
 drawled Frothingham. He coughed and stammered, 
 and added in an embarrassed, apologetic tone, " And 
 I don't like to hear a girl as young and attractive as 
 you are talk in that ghastly way." 
 
 She looked at him with a teasing smile. 
 
 " You'll make some woman a good husband," she 
 said. " Selfish and flighty, perhaps, but on the whole 
 good. I'll be glad to help you with some other girl. 
 In fact, I've one in mind an acquaintance in New 
 York we call each the other friend, and I'm fond of 
 i her, as that sort of thing goes with women." 
 
 He began to stammer again, and she saw that he 
 was still hanging hopefully over her father's plan. 
 
 [35] 
 
GOLDEN FLEECE 
 
 " If I were a marrying woman and ambitious," she 
 went on, " I'd think seriously of having a cast at you. 
 But I'm neither, so I can appreciate your assets quite 
 impartially." 
 
 " I've got nothing," he said, " nothing but debts." 
 
 " Debts are an asset if contracted in a way that 
 would seem romantic to a girl. Then, there's your 
 title. That's a big asset either in England or Amer 
 ica. And you've got a fairly good disposition and nice 
 manners, and you pretend indifference charmingly, 
 assisted by your eyeglass. And your character is not 
 too bad. Not too good, either. I've heard one or 
 two rather thick stories of you. If I were your wife 
 I'd keep an eye on the money you will gamble. But 
 your character is well up to the average for our kind 
 of people." 
 
 " I've been rather bad, I'm afraid," he said, in the 
 shallowly penitent tone in which human beings glory 
 in the sins they are proud of. " I've been as bad as 
 I knew how to be." 
 
 " All of us are that, I fancy," replied Honoria, 
 rising. " I sha'n't trouble you to confess to me. Save 
 it for her. Good-night." She put out her hand 
 friendlily. " I think we shall be friends." 
 
 [36] 
 
CHAPTER TWO 
 
 Frothingham looked after her as she went with her 
 father down the deck toward the main companion- 
 way. " She is a queer lot," he muttered. " I sup 
 pose that's American. Well, if it's a fair specimen, I 
 certainly sha'n't be bored in America. 3 
 
 55 
 
 [37] 
 
Ill 
 
 NEW YORK, 6 November. 
 My Dear Eve : 
 
 I'M just sending you off the newspapers with the 
 accounts of George's wedding. Don't show them 
 about, please, as he's frightfully cut up over them. 
 He swears he'll never set foot in this country again, 
 or let his Duchess come. You'll be tremendously 
 amused as you read. You'll never have seen anything 
 so frank and personal. And the illustrations ! We've 
 done nothing but dodge cameras when we weren't 
 dodging reporters. I don't agree with George I 
 think it's great fun. 
 
 They let me off easy, as you'll see, and some of the 
 pictures of me are not half bad. But I don't wonder 
 that George is furious. Just read the descriptions of 
 his looks and really he's looking horribly seedy. 
 And don't neglect the accounts of the new Duchess' 
 papa, and how he came by his cash. He must be a 
 
 gory old vulture though really he doesn't look it, 
 
 [38] 
 
CHAPTER THREE 
 
 and except when he gets to going it hard his English 
 is fairly good, of the nosey, Yankee kind. 
 
 George came down to the dock to meet me. He 
 was in a blue fury. It seems the newspapers had 
 been making a fearful row over him from the moment 
 he left the other side. And then by illustrated ac 
 counts of his houses, his property, his family, and him 
 self, not to speak of what they printed about the 
 Dowies' past and present, they set the crowds to col 
 lecting at his hotel, and to following him round the 
 streets. They published even what he ate and drank, 
 and the size of the tips he gave the servants. And 
 after the engagement was announced the excitement 
 became something incredible. He couldn't poke his 
 nose out of his rooms that somebody didn't collect the 
 crowd by shouting, " There's his Booklets, there's the 
 little fellow " and you know Georgie is a bit sensi 
 tive about his size. 
 
 Well, the newspapers published everything his 
 height and weight, the tooth he has out on the left 
 side, every rag in his boxes, pictures of them, every 
 thing in Miss Dowie's trousseau columns and col 
 umns. And how he did hop round when he found that 
 the Dowies had actually hired a fellow and a woman 
 
 [39] 
 
GOLDEN FLEECE 
 
 to give out facts to the press ! What do you think 
 of that for a Yankee notion? 
 
 You can't imagine the presents. You'd have 
 thought the crown princess was marrying. The news 
 papers say they alone were worth a million and a half, 
 American money. I and Cleggett went over them, and 
 we decided they'd fetch more. You know, Cleggett 
 he's Georgie's solicitor is over here looking after 
 the settlements. He simply had to put the screws 
 onto old Dowie. I got a good many hints from him on 
 how to deal with these beggars in money matters. 
 Dowie's a shrewd chap. He and Cleggett did all the 
 money talk. Georgie was supposed to know nothing 
 about it. But maybe he wasn't in a funk when it be 
 gan to look as if the whole business were off at the 
 last minute. I had to work hard to keep him up to the 
 mark. Clegget won out, though got a hundred 
 thousand pounds more than Georgie expected. 
 
 To go back to the presents, her uncle one of the 
 ha'penny rags here said he's been in the penitentiary, 
 but I hear it's not true he gave her a yacht, a regular 
 ocean steamer. You'll admire the necklace her aunt 
 sent her it can't have cost less than fifty thousand, 
 our money. It makes me ill to see these beggars wad- 
 
 [40] 
 
CHAPTER THREE 
 
 ing and wallowing in money. By the way, I notice 
 that while they talk of spending money, they talk of 
 making it as much as they talk of spending it, if not 
 more. 
 
 Wallingford, a fellow I've met here, said to me at 
 dinner the other night, a few minutes after the women 
 had gone : " Shall we stay here with the men and dis 
 cuss making money, or shall we go up to the women 
 and discuss spending it? r 
 
 But to go back to Georgie and his coming down to 
 meet me. I saw him on the pier, his face like a sunset 
 and his arms going like mad. He was haranguing a 
 crowd in which there were several cameras. I shouted 
 to him I and Miss Longview and her father were at 
 the rail together. As I shouted the crowd looked, and 
 the cameras were pointed at us. Miss Longview darted 
 away, and her father pulled at me. 
 
 " Come, come ! " he said, all in a flurry and a sweat. 
 " They'll take your picture if you stay." 
 
 " Who? " said I. " And why should they take my 
 picture? " 
 
 " The reporters," he answered, dragging at me. 
 " You don't understand about American newspapers." 
 
 I let him drag me away, and then he explained. 
 
 [41] 
 
GOLDEN FLEECE 
 
 " They know you are coming to the wedding," he said> 
 " and they'll photograph you and interview you and 
 print everything about you insulting, impudent 
 things. There's no such thing as privacy in this hor 
 rible country. Didn't I tell you they haven't the 
 faintest notion what a gentleman is, or what is due 
 a gentleman ? ' : 
 
 Barney, I'm sure I told you about him in the let 
 ter I wrote you on the way over, Barney was sitting 
 near us. He burst in with, " I think your friend is 
 unduly alarmed, Earl." (He always calls me Earl. 
 He says he'll be blanked if he'll call any man lord.) 
 * You haven't committed a crime, or done what you'd 
 be ashamed to see in print. No honest man objects to 
 having his face published, or anything else about him 
 that's true." And he glared at Longview, who sniffed 
 and walked away. Barney sent a jeering laugh after 
 him, and said, " The scrawny little chipmunk ! " 
 
 " What's a chipmunk? " said I. 
 
 " A kind of squirrel," said he, " only littler, and 
 even easier to scare." 
 
 We went to the rail, and there was George, with 
 his crowd pushing and jostling him. As soon as the 
 
 gangway was let down he rushed aboard, the crowd 
 
 [42] 
 
CHAPTER THREE 
 
 with the cameras on his heels. At the top he turned 
 like Marius, or whoever it was, at the bridge. And he 
 shouted to the officers, in a funny, shrill voice, " Drive 
 those ruffians back ! " But the officers were smiling at 
 him, and only pretended to restrain the reporters and 
 photographers. On they came, reaching us about as 
 soon as George did. They poured round and between 
 us, and began to ask me questions. I must admit they 
 were polite, in the Yankee way, and friendly, and 
 good-natured. 
 
 I said to one of 'em : " I say, my good fellow, can't 
 you give me time to get my breath ? " 
 
 " No, I can't, Lord Frothingham," he said, laugh 
 ing. " What would you do if you were I, and your 
 paper were going to press in ten minutes and you were 
 five minutes from a telephone ? " 
 
 I got on famously with them. I didn't in the least 
 mind. They must have liked me, as you'll read. But 
 Georgie ! How they have been dishing him ! 
 
 It wasn't until we got into the carriage that I and 
 he had chance at each other. " Did you ever see or 
 hear of anything like it? " he said. His hands were 
 shaking, and the sweat was rolh'ng down his cheeks. 
 " They act like a lot of South Sea savages when a 
 
 [43] 
 
GOLDEN FLEECE 
 
 whale comes ashore. They are savages. I had heard 
 
 it was a beastly country, but " And he actually 
 
 ground his teeth. 
 
 You know George is very touchy on his dignity, 
 and has old-fashioned ideas of what's due a Duke from 
 his inferiors. It seems he got into a huff when he first 
 came because they treated him in offhand fashion, as 
 they treat everybody. And he tried to snub them. 
 And when they snubbed back, only they had illustrated 
 newspapers to do it in, he went wild, and has been 
 making matters worse and worse for himself. Some 
 of the papers have had leaders pitying Miss Dowie, 
 and predicting that she'll have him in the divorce court 
 for brutality shortly think of it Georgie, quiet 
 Georgie! Everyone is hating him, for he assumed 
 that even Miss Dowie's friends were like the news 
 papers that had slated him, and he snubbed right and 
 left. 
 
 He took me to his hotel. He had an apartment that 
 costs him fifteen pounds a day ain't that cruel ? But 
 he said he didn't propose that these savages should 
 sneer at his poverty they're doing it, anyhow, and 
 they hint that the Dowies are paying his hotel bill, 
 or will have to pay it. However, I think he did well 
 
 [44] 
 
CHAPTER THREE 
 
 to spread himself. There's something about this 
 country that makes you ashamed to seem poor. You 
 spend money and pretend you've got plenty of it. 
 They call it " throwing a bluff," or " making a front." 
 
 George had taken an apartment for me at a tall 
 price, but I wouldn't have it, as I wouldn't saddle him 
 with the expense he hadn't her money in hand then. 
 Besides, I knew that as soon as he was gone I'd have to 
 come down, and that would have looked bad. After I 
 was installed in a very comfortable little apartment 
 thirteen floors up think of that ! at three pounds a 
 day, we drove to Dowie's. A crowd saw us off at the 
 hotel, people pointed and stared at us all the way up 
 the street, and there was a crowd waiting for us at 
 Dowie's. They live in a huge greystone castle, 
 there is no end of smart houses here, but a queer jum 
 ble samples of everything. I hadn't known old 
 Dowie an hour before he told me the house and ground 
 and all cost him six hundred thousand, our money. 
 
 The girl but you'll judge her for yourself. I 
 rather fancied her. Affected, of course, and trying 
 to act a duchess out of one of Ouida's novels. Rather 
 fat, too, and her hair is thin, and a mussy shade of 
 yellow. I think she'll waddle in about five years. 
 
 [45] 
 
GOLDEN FLEECE 
 
 Still, she's sensible and quick, and dresses well. All 
 the women here do that. But the money ! It's heart 
 rending to see it parade by. And they seem to be 
 throwing it away, but they don't. Everything is hor 
 ribly dear here. I must look sharp or I sha'n't last 
 long. 
 
 The newspapers will give you all you want to know 
 about the wedding it was quite a show perhaps vul 
 gar and overdone, but really gorgeous. I like Amer 
 ica, and I like the people. They're jolly good-natured, 
 and the nice ones here are much the same as nice people 
 anywhere else. The Longviews have taken a big 
 furnished house, and I'm staying with them. Next 
 week a friend of Miss Longview a Miss Hollister, 
 who lives here, but her people are still in the country 
 is coming to visit her. Her (Miss Hollister's) 
 father owns a lot of railways and mines, and is no end 
 of a financial swell. I'm too sleepy to write another 
 word, except 
 
 ARTHUR. 
 
 How is Gwen? Be good to me, Evelyn with 
 love A. 
 
 [46] 
 
He liked the very first glimpse of her 
 
HONORIA took Frothingham to the . Grand 
 Central Station to meet Catherine, and he liked 
 the very first glimpse of her as she came strid 
 ing down the platform. She was tall and narrow, and 
 she wore dresses and wraps that emphasised both these 
 characteristics. She had a long, thin neck and a small, 
 delicately coloured face, which she knew how to frame 
 most fascinatingly in her hair, with or without the aid 
 of her hat. She had dreamy young eyes, long and 
 narrow, and her red lips and her slender, nervous fin 
 gers made it clear that she lived in her senses rather 
 than in her intellect that she would neither say nor 
 think anything brilliant, but would feel intensely, and 
 could be powerfully appealed to through her imagina 
 tion. She was wearing a light brown, brightly lined 
 coat that trailed to her heels ; and she was holding up 
 from the dust and close about her many folds of soft, 
 fine materials, cloth and silk and linen and lace. In 
 her wake came a maid and a porter, each laden with 
 
 [47] 
 
CHAPTER FOUR 
 
 her belongings, an attractive array of comforts and 
 luxuries of travel. 
 
 " I'm glad you brought a closed carriage," she said, 
 with a shiver, as they started for home. " It's raw, 
 and the sky seems to weigh upon one's shoulders and 
 head. This is a day to hide in the house, close by an 
 open fire." 
 
 Frothingham was surprised by this fairy-princess 
 delicateness in so robust a creature. He thought the 
 day mild, and as for the sky, why bother about any 
 thing that far away, so long as it sent nothing down 
 to bother one? 
 
 " You forget we are English," said Honoria. " We 
 call this good weather. I must confess the closed car 
 riage was a happy accident." 
 
 " So like you, Honoria ! Isn't it, Lord Frothing 
 ham ? " Catherine gave him a sweet smile. " She 
 never permits one to keep agreeable illusions. Now, 
 I was loving her for being so thoughtful for me." 
 
 As Frothingham only stared, shy and stolid, 
 through his eyeglass, the two girls began to talk each 
 to the other they had not met in two years, not since 
 Catherine and her mother visited Honoria at Long- 
 view's place in Bucks. 
 
 [48] 
 
CHAPTER FOUR 
 
 " What a beautiful place it was ! " said Catherine. 
 " I often dream of it. But then, I love England. It 
 is of such a wonderful, vivid shade of green, and every 
 thing is so cultivated, and refined, and and like a 
 fairy garden. Don't you find the contrast very great, 
 Lord Frothingham ? We are very new and wild." 
 
 " I've seen only people since I've been here. I must 
 say the people at least, those I've met remind me 
 of home, except that they speak the language differ 
 ently. As for the city, it's not at all as I fancied. It's 
 much like Paris more attractive than London, not so 
 gloomy." 
 
 " Paris ! " Catherine smiled, with gently reproach 
 ful satire. " Oh, you flatter us." 
 
 " I like it better," insisted Frothingham. " It's 
 Paris with English in the streets I hate Frenchmen." 
 
 " No, they're not nice to look at the men," admit 
 ted Catherine. " But I adore what they've done. 
 What would the world be without France? '" , 
 
 " Oh, I don't know," said Frothingham, with his 
 cynical, enthusiasm-discouraging drawl. " They're 
 hysterical beggars, always exploding for no reason. 
 It makes me nervous. I like quiet and comfort." 
 
 " Lord Frothingham isn't so sensible as he pre- 
 
 [49] 
 
GOLDEN FLEECE 
 
 tends," put in Honoria. " He's really almost as sen 
 timental and emotional as you are, Catherine." 
 
 " Oh, but I'm neither," replied Catherine. " I don't 
 dare to be. If I find myself the least bit enthusiastic 
 I catch myself up and look round, frightened lest 
 somebody may have noticed. I'm such a liar we all 
 are over here. Don't you like sincerity, Lord Froth- 
 ingham ? " 
 
 " I I suppose so." Frothingham looked vague. 
 " What do you mean ? " Catherine's " intensity " con 
 fused him. 
 
 " I mean being true to one's self, and not ashamed 
 to show one's self as one is, and never afraid to tell the 
 truth." 
 
 " But all of us do that, don't we ? " said Frothing 
 ham. There was a twinkle in his eye or was it only 
 the reflection of light from his glass? 
 
 Honoria gave him her " candid friend " look. " No 
 body does," said she. " That is, nobody who has tem 
 perament enough to lead any sort of life above an 
 oyster's." 
 
 " But I can see at a glance that Lord Frothingham 
 has temperament." Catherine looked at him with in 
 tensely sympathetic appreciation. " Yes, men can be 
 
 [50] 
 
CHAPTER FOUR 
 
 sincere and truthful. But women must always repress 
 their real selves." 
 
 Frothingham looked stolid and hopeless. When 
 ever conversation turned on abstractions he felt like a 
 man fumbling and stumbling about in a London fog. 
 " Really ? " he said. " Really, now? " 
 
 " I don't know why women fancy they must be 
 liars," said Honoria. " Do you mind dining at Sher 
 ry's to-night? ' ; Catherine in her psychological 
 moods bored her. She sometimes ventured on aerial 
 flights, but had no fancy for aerial flounderings. 
 
 " Sherry's? That will be delightful! I like din 
 ing at restaurants I'm very American in that re 
 spect." 
 
 " But so do I," said Frothingham. " That is, in 
 your restaurants here. The people are interesting, 
 and they talk a lot, and loud enough so that one hears 
 every word and isn't annoyed by missing the sense. 
 And how they do waste the food ! " 
 
 " Food ! " Catherine repeated the word with a 
 smile that was half-humourous, half pleading. 
 " Please don't use that word, Lord Frothingham. It 
 always makes me shiver. It sounds so so animal ! 5! 
 
 Frothingham put on the blank look behind which he 
 
 [51] 
 
GOLDEN FLEECE 
 
 habitually sheltered himself when he did not know 
 what to say, or to do, or to think. Honoria was dis 
 gusted with him and with Catherine. " They're not 
 going to like each other, not even enough to marry," 
 she said to herself. " And it's a pity, as they're 
 exactly suited. If Catherine only wouldn't 
 pose ! " 
 
 She was, therefore, somewhat surprised when, im 
 mediately she and Catherine were alone, Catherine 
 burst into rhapsody on Frothingham. " What a fine, 
 strong face! So much character! What a sincere, 
 sensitive, pure nature. He's a splendid type of true 
 gentleman, isn't he, Nora? How well he contrasts 
 with our men! Doesn't he?" 
 
 Honoria smiled to herself. " She wants to marry 
 him," she thought, " and she's building a fire under 
 her imagination. I might have known it. She's the 
 very person to weave romance over a title and imagine 
 it all gospel. What a poser ! " To Catherine she 
 said : " He's a decent enough chap, Caterina. And 
 you'll admire him more than ever when you've read 
 him up in Burke's Peerage and looked at the pictures 
 he's given me of Beauvais House." 
 
 "How do you spell it? B-e-v-i-s?" 
 
 [52] 
 
CHAPTER FOUR 
 
 " No, that's the way you pronounce it. You spell 
 it B-e-a-u-v-a-i-s." 
 
 "Isn't that interesting? It's so commonplace to 
 pronounce a word the way it's spelt, don't you 
 think? " 
 
 " I never thought of it, my dear. Why not marry 
 him?" 
 
 " You are so abrupt and and practical, Honoria," 
 said Catherine plaintively. " But you are a dear. I 
 should never marry a man unless I loved him." 
 
 Honoria looked faintly cynical. " Certainly not. 
 But surely you can love any man you make up your 
 mind to marry. What is your imagination for ? " 
 
 At Sherry's that night, besides Honoria, Catherine, 
 Longview, and Frothingham, there were at Longview's 
 table Mrs. Carnarvon, of the hunting set, and Joe 
 Wallingford he hunts and writes verse, both badly, 
 and looks and talks, both extremely well. Honoria de 
 voted herself to Wallingford and so released Catherine 
 and Frothingham each upon the other she listened 
 for a few seconds now and then to note their progress. 
 
 " It's a go," she said to herself with the match 
 maker's thrill of triumph, as the cold dessert was 
 
 served. She saw that Frothingham had ceased to 
 
 [53] 
 
GOLDEN FLEECE 
 
 listen, and so had ceased to puzzle; his eyeglass was 
 trained steadily and sympathetically upon Cather 
 ine's fascinating beauty why weary the brain when 
 it might rest and enjoy itself through the eyes? 
 Catherine was talking on and on, quoting poetry, tell 
 ing Frothingham of her emotions, telling him of his 
 emotions he did not have them, but she was so earnest 
 that he was half convinced. 
 
 " When you said this afternoon that you liked 
 things quiet and comfortable," she said, " I felt that 
 it was splendidly in keeping with your character. I 
 saw that you hated all this noise and display, that 
 you like to get away in your own corner of your beau 
 tiful England and live grandly and quietly near 
 Nature." 
 
 If Catherine had not been beautiful and rich he 
 would have said to himself, " What rubbish ! " But, 
 as it was, he thought her profound and spiritual. And 
 he said, trying to touch bottom and get a firm stand 
 upon firm earth, " I think you'd like Beauvais." 
 
 " I'm sure I should," replied Catherine with en 
 thusiasm. " Honoria was showing me the photo 
 graphs of it. I admire the great, stately old house. 
 
 But I liked best of all the picture of the woods and 
 
 [54] 
 
CHAPTER FOUR 
 
 the brook. It reminded me of those lines of Cole 
 ridge's they are so beautiful where he speaks of 
 the brook 
 
 " ( In the leafy month of June 
 
 That to the sleeping woods all night 
 Singeth a quiet tune.' 
 
 Don't you think those lines fine? Do I quote them 
 right? " 
 
 " Yes I think so that is," stammered Frothing- 
 ham, " it's a jolly brook, but we call it a river." Then 
 to himself : " What an ass she'll think me ! " But the 
 starting sweat stayed, for she asked him no more ques 
 tions; and he, freed from the anxiety of having to 
 try to soar with her, was able to sit quietly and en 
 joy her beauty, and the murmurous rush of her low, 
 musical voice " It's like the brook that brute she 
 quoted wrote about," he thought. 
 
 He did not drive home with his party, but accepted 
 Wallingford's invitation to walk in the fresh night 
 air to his club. " Your American women are tre 
 mendously clever," he said, as they were strolling 
 along. He was feeling dazed and dizzy from the 
 whirl of his emotions, the whirls and shocks Catherine 
 Hollister had given his brain. 
 
 [55] 
 
GOLDEN FLEECE 
 
 "Yes, they're clever," replied Wallingford, "but 
 not in the way they think they are. Take Kitty Hoi- 
 lister, for example. She's all right when she wants to 
 be. She thinks sense. But what a raft of fuzzy trash 
 she does float out when she gets a-going. I pitied you 
 this evening. She laid herself out to impress you. 
 You're staying in the house with her, aren't you? I 
 suppose she whoops it up whenever you're round? " 
 
 " I find her very clever and interesting," said 
 Frothingham somewhat stiffly. 
 
 " Of course she is. I've known her for seventeen. of 
 the nineteen years she's gladdened the earth and I 
 ought to know her pretty well. But she's like a lot of 
 the women in this town. They haven't any emotions 
 to speak of nothing emotional happens. But they 
 think they ought to have emotions such as they read 
 about, and so they fake 'em. Then, they've got the 
 craze for culture. They haven't the time to get the 
 real thing they're too busy showing off. Besides, 
 they're too lazy. So they fake culture, too. Oh, yes, 
 they're clever. And they look so well that you like 
 the fake as they parade it better than the real thing." 
 
 " We have that sort in London," said Frothingham. 
 
 " So I've observed. But it's done rather better 
 
 [56] 
 
CHAPTER FOUR 
 
 there they're older hands at it. If you weren't an 
 Englishman, I'd say it fitted in better among the 
 other shams. I suppose you've noticed that many 
 people here are imitation English or French? You've 
 seen the tags ' Made in England,' ' Made in France,' 
 * Made in England, finished in France ' ? ' : 
 
 " I've noticed similarities," replied Frothingham 
 tactfully. 
 
 " It's all imitation stuff the labels are frauds. 
 We over here don't know how to be gracefully idle and 
 inane, as your upper classes do. It's not in us any 
 where. We haven't the tradition our tradition is all 
 against it. Whenever we do produce a thoroughly 
 idle and inane person, he or she goes abroad to live, 
 or else loses all his money to some sharp, pushing fel 
 low, and drops out of sight. All this aristocracy you 
 see is pure pose. Underneath, they're Americans." 
 
 " What is an American ? " asked Frothingham. 
 " Every time I think I've seen one, along comes some 
 native and tells me I'm wrong. Are you an Amer- 
 can?" 
 
 " Underneath yes. On the surface no. I used 
 to be, but now I'm posing with the rest of 'em. You'll 
 have to get out of New York to see Americans. There 
 
 [57] 
 
GOLDEN FLEECE 
 
 are droves of 'em here, but they're so scattered in 
 places you'll never go to that you couldn't find them. 
 You'd better go West if you wish to be sure of seeing 
 the real thing." 
 
 " It's very confusing. How shall I know this Amer 
 ican when I see him ? " 
 
 " When you see a man or a woman who looks as if 
 he or she would do something honest and valuable, 
 who looks you straight in the eyes, and makes you feel 
 proud that you're a human being and ashamed that 
 you are not a broader, better, honester one that's an 
 American." And then he smiled with his eyes so 
 queerly that Frothingham could not decide whether or 
 not he was jesting. 
 
 At the club Wallingford introduced him into a 
 large circle of young men, seated round two tables 
 pushed together, and covered with " high balls," and 
 bottles of carbonated water, and silver bowls of 
 cracked ice. He said little, drank his whiskey and 
 water, and listened. " It's the talk of stock brokers 
 and tradesmen," he said to himself. " Yet these fel 
 lows are certainly gentlemen, and they don't talk 
 business in the least like our middle-class people. It's 
 very confusing." 
 
 [58] 
 
CHAPTER FOUR 
 
 After he left the others were most friendly, and even 
 admiring, in their comments upon him. 
 
 " He's monotonous, and poor, and will never have 
 anything unless he marries it," said Wallingford. 
 " If he were a plain, poor, incapable, rather dull 
 American, is there one of us that would waste five 
 minutes on him? " 
 
 There was silence, then a laugh. 
 
 [59] 
 
WALLINGFORD and Frothingham devel 
 oped a warm friendship. Wallingford was 
 extremely suspicious of himself in it, but 
 after a searching self-analysis decided that his liking 
 for the Earl was to a certain extent genuine. " He 
 doesn't know much at least, he acts as if he didn't. 
 But he's clever in a curious way, and a good listener, 
 and not a bit of a fakir. No doubt he's on the look 
 out for a girl with cash, but English ideas on that sub- \ 
 ject are different from ours that is, from what ours 
 are supposed to be. He's a type of English gentle 
 man, and not a bad type of gentleman without any 
 qualification." 
 
 When he expressed some such ideas to Catherine 
 Hollister, at a dance given for her by Mrs. Carnar 
 von, she went so much further in praise of Frothing 
 ham that he laughed. " So that's the way the wind 
 blows, eh ? " he said, grinning at her satirically. 
 
 She coloured, and put on the look of an offended 
 
 saint. 
 
 [60] 
 
CHAPTER FIVE 
 
 " Countess of Frothingham," he went on, undis 
 turbed. " That would sound romantic, wouldn't it? 
 Catherine, Countess of Frothingham ! " 
 
 " How can you be so coarse-fibred in some ways, 
 Joe, and so fine in others? " she said reproachfully. 
 
 " I don't know, dear lady. I suppose because I'm 
 human just like you." 
 
 " Let us dance," was her only reply. She had 
 known Joe so long that she couldn't help liking him, 
 but he certainly was trying. 
 
 Later in the evening, remembering Joe's cruelty 
 and sordidness, she said to Frothingham : " You don't 
 know what a pleasure it is to the finer women over here 
 to meet foreign men. They are so much more subtle 
 and sympathetic. They are not coarsened by busi 
 ness. They are not mercenary." 
 
 She raised her dreamy eyes to his as she spoke the 
 word " mercenary." He reddened and stumbled 
 they were dancing the two-step. " I wish you wouldn't 
 look at me like that," he said, with an ingenuousness 
 wholly unconscious. " It reminds me of my sins, and 
 and all that." 
 
 She trembled slightly, as he could plainly feel in 
 his encircling arm. He looked down at her she al- 
 
 [61] 
 
GOLDEN FLEECE 
 
 ways was ethereally beautiful in evening dress. In his 
 admiration he almost forgot how rich she was ; he quite 
 forgot how oppressively intellectual she was. " Do 
 you do you " he began. Then he stopped danc 
 ing and led her into the hall, through the hall to the 
 library. Two other couples were there, but far enough 
 from the corner to which he took her. 
 
 " May I smoke? " he asked. 
 
 " I love the odour of a cigarette," she replied, in a 
 voice that encouraged him to resume where he had ab 
 ruptly left off. 
 
 " Perhaps you will smoke? " 
 
 " No," she said, in a tone that was subtly modu 
 lated to mean apology or reproach, according as he 
 liked or disliked women smoking. 
 
 "Do you really like England?" he began nerv 
 ously, seeing to it that his glass was firmly ad 
 justed. 
 
 " I adore it ! " Usually she would have gone on 
 into poetical prose unlimited. But this, she felt, was 
 a time for short answers. 
 
 " Would you mind England with with " 
 
 He halted altogether, and she slowly raised her 
 heavy lids until her eyes met his. 
 
 [62] 
 
CHAPTER FIVE 
 
 " Catherine ! " He seized her hand, and the thrill 
 of her touch went through him. " You are so lovely. 
 I I'm horribly fond of you." 
 
 She sighed. " Isn't it beautiful? " she said. "This 
 lovely dance these fascinating surroundings the 
 
 music the dim lights and and " She lifted 
 
 her eyes to his again. 
 
 He murmured her name, threw away his cigarette, 
 looked round to see where the other eyes in that room 
 were, then clasped her round the waist for an instant. 
 " Will you ? Will you ? " he exclaimed. 
 
 " Yes," she replied, in a tone so faint that he barely 
 heard. 
 
 " You have made me happy." And he meant it. 
 
 " How satisfactory she is in every way," he was say 
 ing to himself. " Looks, money, everything. I'm a 
 lucky dog." And she was saying to herself, " Count 
 ess of Frothingham ! How strong and fine and simple 
 he is. I love him ! " But when he suggested speaking 
 to her father at once she would not have it. " No I 
 want it to be just our secret for a little while," she 
 pleaded. " Don't you? ' He did not see any reason 
 for it, but he said " Yes " with a surface reflection of 
 her earnestness. 
 
 [63] 
 
GOLDEN FLEECE 
 
 " It's a pity the world ever should know anything 
 about it, don't you think so? " she went on. 
 
 " I'm very impatient to claim my countess," he an 
 swered. 
 
 She liked the " countess," but the " my " jarred 
 slightly in her sensitive ear she was " acquiring " an 
 earl, not he a countess. 
 
 " Not too long," he remonstrated. It was all very 
 well for her to be romantic he wouldn't have liked it 
 if he had not inspired some romance. But why should 
 either of them wish to delay ratifying the bargain that 
 was the real purpose in view ? Certainly he wished no 
 delay. And there was much to be arranged settle 
 ments, a trousseau, a host of time-consuming prelimi 
 naries. Not a day should be lost in getting under 
 way. His creditors, impatiently awaiting the event of 
 his American adventure, might become ugly. He hated 
 ugly letters and cablegrams almost as much as he 
 hated ugly " scenes." No, he felt strongly on the sub 
 ject of long engagements. 
 
 His heart was full of her beauty he had drunk a 
 good deal at supper half an hour before. His head 
 was full of her dowry he never drank so much that 
 
 he forgot business. " How could I evade if anyone 
 
 [64] 
 
CHAPTER FIVE 
 
 should congratulate me? " he asked. And then he 
 wished he had not said it, but had made that the ex 
 cuse for not obeying her. 
 
 " You must deny it, as I shall. You know, we're 
 not really fully engaged until I'm ready to have it an 
 nounced. Besides, as Joe Wallingford says, a lie in 
 self-defence isn't a lie. And self-defence isn't either a 
 crime or a sin, is it? I think self-defence against pry 
 ing is a virtue, don't you ? " 
 
 A man came to claim her for a dance. She smiled 
 sweetly at him, plaintively at Frothingham, and went 
 back to the ballroom. Frothingham stood in the door 
 way watching her for a few minutes, then went away 
 from the dance to walk and think and enjoy. But 
 his mind was depressed. " Too much supper," he 
 grumbled. " I ought to be tossing my hat. I don't 
 deserve her and my luck. Her cash will put us right 
 for the first time since my great-grandfather ruined 
 us by going the Prince Regent's gait. We shall re 
 store Beauvais House and take the place in Carlton 
 Terrace again. Gad! what a relief it will be to feel 
 free in my mind about cab fares, and not to claim com 
 missions from my tailor when I send him customers. I 
 shall be able to live up to the title and the tradi- 
 
 [65] 
 
GOLDEN FLEECE 
 
 tions " He painted vividly, but in vain. He 
 
 caught himself looking away from the glowing pic 
 tures and sighing. " Yes, she's pretty devilish pretty 
 and a high stepper, but Gwen would be so com 
 fortable so d n comfortable ! " 
 
 Honoria suspected their secret, yet doubted the cor 
 rectness of her intuitions. " She'd parade it," she 
 reflected, " if she were really engaged to him. There 
 
 x, 
 
 must be a hitch somewhere." And her wonder grew as 
 the report of their engagement spread only to be 
 strenuously denied by Catherine. 
 
 Catherine was almost tearful in lamenting this " im 
 pertinent gossip " to her. " Isn't it hateful, Honoria," 
 she said, " that a young man and a young woman can't 
 be civil and friendly to each other when they're visit 
 ing in the same house, without all the busybodies try 
 ing to embarrass them? Did you see the papers this 
 morning? How dare they print it ! " 
 
 Honoria smiled at this mock indignation. " Where's 
 the injury to you in crediting you with landing an 
 earl? " she asked. 
 
 Catherine gave her a look of melancholy reproach. 
 " Do you know," she said dreamily, " I don't think of 
 him as an earl any longer? His character makes 
 
 [66] 
 
CHAPTER FIVE 
 
 everything else about him seem of no consequence. 
 Don't you think he is a remarkable man ? " 
 
 " A little less remarkable than a marquis, a little 
 more remarkable than a viscount and in comparison 
 with a baronet or a plain esquire, a positive genius ! " 
 replied Honoria. 
 
 Frothingham was more and more uncomfortable. 
 Catherine took him everywhere in her train and, with 
 seeming unconsciousness of what she was doing, fairly 
 flaunted him as her devoted attendant. Yet only when 
 they were alone did she ever betray that she had more 
 than a polite, friendly interest in him. He would have 
 got angry at her, would have made vigorous protest, 
 but how was it possible to bring such sordidness as 
 mere vulgar appearances to the attention of so inno 
 cent and high-minded a creature ? He restrained him 
 self, or, rather, was restrained until Horse Show 
 week. 
 
 Those afternoons and evenings of dragging at the 
 divine Catherine's chariot wheels before the eyes of the 
 multitude were too much for him. It was one of the 
 years when the Horse Show was the fashion for the 
 fashionable. Not only the racing set and the hunting 
 set, but also the dancing and the dressing and the 
 
 [67] 
 
GOLDEN FLEECE 
 
 literary and artistic sets, and the fadless, but none the 
 less frivolous, set, flocked there day and evening to 
 crowd the boxes with a dazzling display of dresses, 
 wraps, jewels, and free-and-easy manners. At first 
 Frothingham gaped almost as amazedly as the multi 
 tude that poured slowly and thickly round the prom 
 enade, eyes glued upon the occupants of the boxes, 
 never a glance to spare for the ring from the cyclb- 
 rama of luxury and fashion. " And at a horse show ! " 
 he muttered, as he noted the hats and gowns made to 
 be shown only in houses, or in carriages on the way to 
 and from houses, but there exhibited amid the dust of 
 the show ring. " What rotten bad taste ! " 
 
 He was astounded to find Catherine outdone by none 
 in extravagant out-of-placeness of ostentation as he 
 regarded it. Day after day, night after night, she 
 showed herself off to her friends and to the craning 
 throngs of the promenade in a kaleidoscopic series of 
 wonderful " creations." And she insisted that he 
 should always be in close attendance. As he sat beside 
 her he heard the comments of the crowd there was al 
 ways a crowd in front of Longview's box : " That's the 
 girl." " Yes, and the fellow beside her, with the eye 
 glass, he's the Earl." " I don't know how much 
 
 [68] 
 
CHAPTER FIVE 
 
 some say a million some say two or three." " He 
 looks dull, but then all Englishmen look that." " I'll 
 bet he could be a brute. Look what a heavy jaw he's 
 got." " She'll be sick of him before she's had him 
 a year." 
 
 Did Catherine hear? he wondered. Apparently not. 
 He never surprised in her face or manner a hint of 
 consciousness of self or of being stared at and com 
 mented upon. " But she can't avoid hearing," he said 
 to himself. " These asses are braying right in her 
 ears. And why should she get herself up in all these 
 clothes, if it ain't to be stared at? " 
 
 And, between performances, the performers in the 
 Longview box dined in the palm garden at the Wal 
 dorf, with their acquaintances at the surrounding ta 
 bles, and gossip of their engagement flying, and curi 
 ous glances straying toward them over the tops of 
 wine-glasses, and whispers and smiles and Catherine 
 soulful and unconscious. On Friday night, as they 
 drove from the Waldorf to the Garden she had 
 given him her hand to hold under cover of the 
 lap-robe she said, with a sigh : " I'm so glad 
 it's nearly over. Only to-night and to-morrow 
 night." 
 
 [69] 
 
GOLDEN FLEECE 
 
 " Not to-morrow afternoon? " asked Frothingham. 
 " Why do we miss a chance to exhibit ? " 
 
 " Only the servants and the children go to-morrow 
 afternoon," replied Catherine sweetly. " I'm worn out 
 and sick of it all. So many go merely for self -display ; 
 so few of us, not to speak of those dreadful people in 
 the promenade, care anything about the dear, beauti 
 ful, noble horses." 
 
 " Why look at horses," said Honoria, " when there's 
 a human show that's so much more interesting? It 
 may be vulgar, but it's amusing. I'm afraid my tastes 
 are not refined." 
 
 Frothingham looked at her with the expression of a 
 thirsty man who is having a glass of cold water. 
 " That's what I think," said he. " And I'm fond of 
 horses." A faint sneer in his satirical drawl made 
 Catherine give him a furtive glance of anxiety was 
 the worm thinking of turning? 
 
 When they were in the box and the others were busy 
 she said to him, in her tenderest tone : " You're dread 
 fully bored by all this, aren't you? And I thought it 
 would give you pleasure for us to be together so 
 much." 
 
 The surliness cleared from his face somewhat. " No, 
 
 [70] 
 
l As if we were a pair of new chimpanzees in a zoo' 
 
CHAPTER FIVE 
 
 I'm not bored. But I hate to be shown off. And, while 
 you've been unconscious of it, the fact is that you and 
 I have been sitting here in this cage five or six hours a 
 day, gaped at as if we were a pair of new chimpanzees 
 in a zoo." As he remembered his wrongs, his anger 
 rose upon the wine he had freely drunk at dinner. 
 " It's what I call low downright rotten, Catherine," 
 he finished energetically. 
 
 " I wish you wouldn't use that dreadful word," she 
 said, tears in her eyes, but a certain sting in her voice. 
 " I know it's all right in England some of us use it 
 here. But it every time you or anyone says it I feel 
 as if someone had thrust a horrid-smelling rag under 
 my nose. You don't mind my saying so, do you, dear? v 
 
 " Beg pardon," he said. " We do use rowdy words 
 nowadays. I'm so accustomed to it I don't notice." 
 
 Just then up to his ears from the promenade and the 
 crowd gaping at the " new chimpanzees " came a 
 voice : " They're fighting look ! look ! Hasn't he got 
 an ugly scowl? And she's almost crying." 
 
 He flushed scarlet and sent a glowering glance down 
 into the crowd. He turned upon Catherine : " Just 
 hear that! They think I'm rowing you. By beg 
 pardcn, but well I sha'n't endure it another in- 
 
 [71] 
 
GOLDEN FLEECE 
 
 stant." And he rose, brushed past Catherine's mother 
 and Longview, Honoria and two men hanging over 
 her, and stalked along the aisle down into and through 
 the recognising crowd, and out of the Garden. 
 
 The boxes ate greedily of this sensation, and the 
 crowd in the promenade scrambled frantically for the 
 crumbs. It was presently noised round that the Eng 
 lishman had become angered, had struck someone. 
 Rumour at first said it was Catherine ; but the crowd by 
 the use of its legs and eyes, and the boxes by the use 
 of their glasses, learned that this was false. There sat 
 Catherine, calm, absorbed in the ring, applauding the 
 jumpers, and turning now and then to her compan 
 ions with outbursts of ladylike enthusiasm for some 
 particularly clever performance. However, crowd and 
 boxes saw that the Englishman was gone, felt that he 
 must have gone in anger. 
 
 The Longview party stopped at the Waldorf for 
 supper, and Frothingham, calmer and a little embar 
 rassed, joined them. Catherine received him as if 
 nothing had taken place, and the next night they ap 
 peared together at the Garden as usual. 
 
 Late in the evening she said to him : " I've told 
 mother of our engagement. Do you mind, dear? " 
 
 [72] 
 
CHAPTER FIVE 
 
 His face lighted up. 
 
 " She wishes you to come down to the country with 
 us on Sunday to stay a week or two. It is beautiful 
 there, and we shall be very quiet. Shall you like 
 that? " 
 
 " And I may speak to your father ? " he asked. " In 
 my country it wouldn't be regarded as honourable for 
 me to act as I've been acting with you. I can't help 
 feeling uncomfortable because I've said nothing to 
 your father." 
 
 " I'll speak to him first, Arthur. He lets me do as I 
 please. And he'll be contented with whatever makes 
 me happy. He's such a dear ! " 
 
 Frothingham looked faintly annoyed. It was not 
 in his plan to include " father " in their romance. Ro 
 mance with daughter, business with father that was 
 the proper and discreet distribution of the prelimina 
 ries to the formal engagement. He had, deep down, a 
 horrible, nervous fear that he might be drawn into 
 matrimony without definite settlements the father 
 might be as difficult to pin down in his way as was the 
 daughter in her way. " I must take this business in 
 hand," he said to himself, " or I'll be in a ghastly 
 
 mess." 
 
 [73] 
 
GOLDEN FLEECE 
 
 Catherine, her mother, and he went down on the one- 
 o'clock train. The Hollister country' place Lake- 
 in-the-Wood was a great pile of brick and stone, im 
 pressive for size rather than for beauty, filled with ex 
 pensive furnishings and swarming servants in showy 
 livery, and surrounded by a handsome, well-ordered 
 park, with winding walks and drives, and romantically 
 bridged streams flowing to and from a large lake. 
 They lived with more ceremony than did Surrey at 
 Heath Hall but there was an air of newness and stiff 
 ness and prodigal profusion about it all, a suggestion 
 of a creation of yesterday that might find a grave to 
 morrow. This impression, which had often come to 
 him in the palaces of New York, began to form as the 
 porter opened the huge gates between the park and 
 the highway. It grew stronger and stronger as he 
 penetrated into the gaudy, if tasteful, establishment. 
 Everything was too new, too grand, too fine. The 
 daughter alone was at her ease; the mother was not 
 quite at her ease; the father was distinctly, if self- 
 mockingly, ill at ease. 
 
 The two women left Frothingham alone with him, 
 and the old man soon vented his dissatisfaction. " I 
 suppose you like this sort of thing," he said, with a 
 
 [74] 
 
CHAPTER FIVE 
 
 wave of the arm to indicate that he meant the establish 
 ment. " But I don't. If I had my way we'd be simple 
 and comfortable no, I don't mean that exactly. I 
 suppose at bottom I'm as big a fool as the women. 
 But, all the same, French cooking gives me indigestion. 
 That infernal frog-eater in the right wing has it in 
 for me. He's killing me by inches. And I'm so afraid 
 of him and the butler and all the rest of 'em that I 
 don't kick the traces more than once a week." He 
 laughed. " My wife and daughter have got me well 
 trained. Whenever they tell me to, I sit up on my 
 hind legs and * speak ' for crackers and snap 'em off 
 my nose." 
 
 Frothingham liked him at once he was a big, 
 handsome old fellow, with keen, steel-grey eyes, 
 and the strong look of the successful man of affairs. 
 " I fancy he's almost one of those Americans Walling- 
 ford talked about," he thought. 
 
 After a smoke with Hollister he went to his rooms 
 a suite of vast chambers, like the show rooms of a 
 palace, with a marble bathroom that had a small 
 swimming pool sunk in the middle of it. He looked 
 out upon the drive and the park and the half-hidden 
 streams glittering in the sunshine. " These people 
 
 [75] 
 
GOLDEN FLEECE 
 
 ^ 
 will beat us out at our own game when they get used 
 
 to the cards," he said. 
 
 There was the sound of wheels and horses many 
 wheels and many horses. He looked down the drive 
 one after another came into view a three-seated buck- 
 board, a stylish omnibus, a waggon with the seats 
 taken out to make room for a huge pile of luggage. 
 In the buckboard and the omnibus he recognised men 
 and women whom he had met in New York the Leigh- 
 tons, the Spencers, the Farrells, the Howards, Mrs. 
 Carnarvon, Wallingford, Gresham, Browne, a man 
 whose name he could not recall, Miss Lester, Miss Dev- 
 enant. " I thought Catherine and I were to be * very 
 quiet,' " he muttered. 
 
 There were thirty-two people at dinner that night, 
 sixteen of whom? including himself, were guests in the 
 house for stays of three days, a week, ten days. " You 
 said you were to be alone," he said to Catherine, with 
 ironic reproach. 
 
 She gave him her pathetic, helpless look. " I did 
 hope so. But I asked some, and mamma asked others, 
 and the rest asked themselves." 
 
 The days passed, and he had only fleeting glimpses 
 of her. Everybody was hunting, riding, driving, go- 
 
 [76] 
 
CHAPTER FIVE 
 
 ing to luncheons, teas, dinners, through a neighbour 
 hood ten miles square. Every moment from early un 
 til late was more than occupied it was crowded, 
 jammed. His idea of country life was the quiet, lazy 
 ease of England ; a week of this rushing about fagged 
 him, body and mind. He ceased to try for a moment 
 alone with her; he saw that it was hopeless to expect 
 so much in a place where he could not get a moment 
 alone with himself. 
 
 " You never rest in this country ? " he said, address 
 ing the men in the library at midnight, as they were 
 having a final nightcap. 
 
 " Why should we? " replied Browne. " Why antic 
 ipate the grave's only pleasure ? " 
 
 " You see," explained Wallingford, " on this side 
 of the water we take our pleasures energetically. When 
 we work, we work hard ; when we play, we play hard. 
 If we're having a good time, we crowd our luck, in the 
 hope of having a better time. If we're bored, we 
 hurry, to get it over with." 
 
 " Do you keep this up the year round ? '' 
 
 " Except on ocean steamers. But we'll close that 
 gap when we get the ' wireless ' installed, with a tele 
 phone to the head of every berth." 
 
 [77] 
 
VI 
 
 ON a Monday morning Frothingham's eighth 
 day at Lake-in-the-wood only Wallingford 
 and the tireless Catherine appeared for the 
 early ride. " It's cold," said Wallingford. " Shall 
 we canter? " And they swept through the gates and 
 on over the frost-spangled meadows for several miles 
 before they drew their horses in to a walk. Cather 
 ine's cheeks were glowing, and her eyes were not 
 dreamy and soulful, but bright with vigorous, wide 
 awake life. 
 
 " I haven't seen you looking so well in years, Kitty." 
 Wallingford was examining her with the slightly 
 mocking, indifferent eyes that had piqued not a few 
 women into trying to make him like them. ' You look 
 positively human. And it's becoming most becom- 
 ing." 
 
 Catherine began to scramble into her pose. She did 
 not like to be caught lapsing from her ideals. 
 
 " Why do you do it ? " Wallingford dropped his 
 
 [78] 
 
CHAPTER SIX 
 
 mockery for an instant. " Your own individuality, 
 no matter how poor you may think it, is far bet 
 ter than any you could possibly invent or bor 
 
 row." 
 
 Catherine looked hurt. " Why do you charge de 
 ception against everyone who lives above your level? ' ! 
 she asked. " I hope you're not going to be nasty this 
 morning, Joe. I'm blue." 
 
 " What's the matter ? Something real, or " 
 
 " Don't tease. This is real." 
 
 " What is it? I see you wish to be encouraged to 
 tell me." 
 
 " No I couldn't tell anyone." Catherine's eyes 
 were tragic. " It's one of those things that can't be 
 told, but must be " 
 
 " Go on. What is it? '' Wallingford refused to be 
 impressed by tragedy. " I see you're dying to tell me. 
 Why not get it over with? " 
 
 " You are so sympathetic, Joe. You pretend not to 
 understand me, but I feel that you always do." 
 
 " You mean that I refuse to be misled by your 
 charming little pretences. But how could I? Why, 
 don't I remember the day, the very hour, you went in 
 for the 6 soulful ' ? I must say, I never could see why 
 
 [79] 
 
GOLDEN FLEECE 
 
 you took that up as your facL- Being natural is much 
 harder to win out at few people are interesting, or 
 even endurable, when they're natural." 
 
 " Joe," she said absently, as if she had not heard 
 him, " I'm afraid I'm making a a dreadful mis 
 take." 
 
 " Well? " he asked almost gruffly, after a short 
 pause. 
 
 " About about Lord Frothingham," she con 
 fessed, lowering her eyelids until her long lashes shad 
 owed her cheeks. 
 
 " Oh, I think you'll land him all right," said Wal- 
 lingf ord encouragingly. " He's a bit gone on you ; 
 and then, too, he needs the cash." 
 
 " Please don't speak of him in that way, Joe. He's 
 not a vulgar fortune-hunter, but a high, sensitive, no 
 ble man." 
 
 " Who said he was a vulgar fortune-hunter? On 
 the contrary, he's an honest British merchant, taking 
 his title to market. And he's been lucky enough to 
 find a good customer." 
 
 Catherine ignored this description of her knight 
 and her romance. " You know I'm engaged to him ? " 
 she asked. 
 
 [80] 
 
CHAPTER SIX 
 
 " Ever since the first time I saw your mother look at 
 him." 
 
 " Yes she approves it." 
 
 " I should say she would," said Wallingford judi 
 cially. " She's got the best part of it. She'll have all 
 the glory of having an earl in the family, and she 
 won't have to live with him." 
 
 " I'm afraid I don't love him as I ought," said 
 Catherine, with a sigh. 
 
 Wallingford laughed. " Now, of what use Is it to 
 talk this over, Kitty, if you won't be frank? It can't 
 be a question of loving him that's troubling you. Of 
 course you don't love him. You love his title, and that 
 would prevent you from loving him for himself, no 
 matter how attractive he was. But why bother about 
 love? He's giving you what you really want." 
 
 " What do I want? " She looked at Wallingford 
 with sincere appeal, slightly humourous, but earnest. 
 
 " I once thought that you wanted to be a real 
 woman. But ever since your mother took you abroad 
 to fill her own and your head with foreign notions I've 
 been losing faith. What do you want now? Why, 
 the trash you're buying." 
 
 " Joe, how can you think I'd sell myself? " 
 
 [81] 
 
GOLDEN FLEECE 
 
 " Why not ? It's generally regarded as a reputable 
 transaction unless one is vulgar enough to sell out 
 for the mere necessaries of life. Oh, I'm not criticis 
 ing you, Kitty. Perhaps I'd sell myself if I could get 
 any sort of price. Never having been tempted, I can't 
 say what I'd do." 
 
 " Please don't talk in that way, even in jest. It 
 isn't true. I know it isn't true. And it's knowing that 
 
 that makes me " She hesitated, then went on 
 
 " despise myself ! It's of no use to lie to you, Joe. 
 I'm glad there's somebody I can't lie to, somebody that 
 sees into me and forces me to look at myself as I am. 
 And sometimes I hate you for it. Yes, I hate you for 
 it now! "' She was sitting very erect upon her horse, 
 her head thrown back, tears of anger in her eyes. 
 
 " Hate? " He shook his head teasingly at her. " I 
 envy you. I've tried every other emotion, and I'd like 
 to try that. But I can't. I can't hate even Frothing- 
 ham. On the contrary, I like him. If you must have 
 a title, you've got to take a husband with it. And I 
 must say, I think you'll be able to harness Frothing- 
 ham down to a fairly reliable family horse." 
 
 " How can you jest so coarsely about such a serious 
 matter? " she exclaimed indignantly. 
 
 [82] 
 
CHAPTER SIX 
 
 " But is it? What does it matter whom you marry, 
 so long as you have no purpose in life other than to 
 make a show and to induce shallow people to admire 
 you and envy you for the things you've got that can 
 be bought and sold? It's better, on the whole, isn't 
 it, my friend, that you should carry out these pur 
 poses through a foreigner, and in a foreign country, 
 than that you should spoil some promising American 
 and be a bad influence here? ' ! 
 
 " You are cruel, Joe. And I thought you'd sympa 
 thise with me, and help me ! " 
 
 There was a pause, then he demanded abruptly: 
 " What does your father say? 5i 
 
 She flushed partly at the memory of the interview 
 with her father, partly through shame in recollecting 
 that she had led Frothingham to believe she had not 
 told him. " He said but why should I tell you? " 
 
 " I don't know, I'm sure, unless because you wish 
 to." 
 
 " Well I will tell you. He said " (she imitated his 
 nasal drawl) : " * If your ma and you want to make the 
 deal I'll sign the papers. I reckon you know what 
 you're about. And all our money's for is to make us 
 happy. Buy what you please I'll settle for it.' " 
 
 [83] 
 
GOLDEN FLEECE 
 
 "Was that all?" 
 
 Catherine lowered her eyes. " Yes, that was all he 
 said. But he looked Joe, it was his look that upset 
 
 me." 
 
 " I understand." Wallingford's voice was gentle 
 and sympathetic now. " And what answer are you go 
 ing to make to that look ? " 
 
 " I'd rather not say," she replied, giving him a 
 brilliant smile. " Let's canter again. We must get 
 home." 
 
 As soon as she reached the house she went to her 
 mother's rooms. Mrs. Hollister was finishing her 
 morning's work with her secretary. Catherine waited, 
 impatiently playing with her riding whip. When the 
 secretary left she said : " Mother, I'm going to throw 
 him over." 
 
 Mrs. Hollister paused for an instant in putting 
 away some of her especially private papers, then went 
 on. Presently she said tranquilly : " You will do noth 
 ing of the sort." 
 
 Catherine quailed before that tone she had been 
 ruled by her mother all her life, had never been inter 
 fered with in any matter which her mother regarded as 
 unimportant, had never been permitted to decide any 
 
 [84] 
 
CHAPTER SIX 
 
 matter which her mother regarded as important. And 
 her mother's rule was the most formidable of all tyr 
 annies the tyranny of kindness. 
 
 " But, mother, I should be wretched with him." 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 On the basis of their method of thought and speech 
 each with the other, it was impossible for her to erect 
 " Because I don't love him " into a plausible objection. 
 So she said : " We have nothing in common. His lazi 
 ness and cynicism irritate me. He makes me nervous. 
 He bores me." 
 
 " All men are objectionable in one way or another," 
 replied her mother. " If you married the ordinary 
 man you would have nothing after you had grown 
 tired. But marrying him, you'll have, first, last, and 
 all the time, the solid advantages of your position and 
 your title. And you'll like him better when you're 
 used to him he has admirable qualities for a hus 
 band." 
 
 " I can't marry him," said Catherine dog 
 gedly. She knew it was useless to argue with her 
 mother. 
 
 " You can't refuse to marry him. It would be dis 
 honourable. Your word is pledged. It would be im- 
 
 [85] 
 
GOLDEN FLEECE 
 
 possible for a child of mine to be guilty of a dishon 
 ourable action." 
 
 " When I tell him how I feel he will release me." 
 
 " You mean he would refuse to marry a woman who, 
 after treating a man as you have treated him, would 
 show herself so light and so lacking in honour. No, 
 my daughter will not disgrace herself and her family." 
 Mrs. Hollister seated herself beside Catherine and put 
 an arm round her. " She has had her every whim 
 gratified, and that has made her careless of responsi 
 bilities. But she will not show herself in serious mat 
 ters light and untrustworthy." 
 
 Catherine stiffened herself against the gentle yet 
 masterful force that seemed to be stealing in upon her 
 from her mother's embrace and tone. 
 
 " You've come to one of those rough places in life," 
 Mrs. Hollister went on, " where young people need the 
 help of some older, more experienced person. And 
 some day soon you'll be glad I was here to see you 
 safely over it." 
 
 " I can't marry him, mother." 
 
 Mrs. Hollister frowned for a second, then her face 
 cleared, and she said quietly : " Your father and I have 
 put you in a position to establish yourself well in life. 
 
 [86] 
 
CHAPTER SIX 
 
 You have engaged yourself to an honourable man, 
 who has something to offer you, who can assure you a 
 position that will be a satisfaction to you all your life 
 and to your children after you. I know I have not 
 brought you up so badly that you would throw away 
 your career, would disregard the interests of those you 
 may bring into the world, all for a mere whim." 
 
 Catherine was silent. 
 
 " Even if you cared for someone else - " 
 
 " But I do," interrupted Catherine impetuously. 
 
 Mrs. Hollister winced and reflected before she went 
 on : " It cannot be a serious attachment, Catherine, or 
 I should have noticed it. Is it Joseph Wallingford? " 
 
 Catherine did not answer. 
 
 " Even if you had been attracted for a moment by a 
 man who had something to offer besides a little senti 
 ment, that would be gone a few brief months after 
 marriage, still it would be your duty to yourself and to 
 your family to make the sensible marriage. You arc 
 not a foolish girl. You are not a child. You know 
 what the substantial things in life are." 
 
 " I can't marry him," repeated Catherine stub 
 bornly. 
 
 Has Wallingford been making love to you ? " 
 
 [87] 
 
 " 
 
GOLDEN FLEECE 
 
 The anger was close to the surface in Mrs. Hollister's 
 voice. 
 
 Catherine smiled bitterly. " No," she answered, 
 " he has not. He cares nothing for me. But I can't 
 marry Lord Frothingham and I won't." 
 
 " You must not say that, Catherine," said her 
 mother sternly. " It is a great shock to me to find that 
 you cannot be trusted. If you refused to marry the 
 man you have voluntarily engaged yourself to, I 
 should never forgive you." 
 
 Catherine's eyes sank before her mother's. " The 
 engagement must be announced at once," her mother 
 went on. " You will change your mind when you have 
 thought it over, and when you realise what my feelings 
 
 are." 
 
 " I can't " began Catherine monotonously. 
 
 " I wish to hear no more about it, child," inter 
 rupted her mother, her eyes glittering a forewarning 
 of the hate she would have for a daughter who dis 
 obeyed her. " To-morrow we will talk of it 
 again." 
 
 Catherine and her mother arose, and each faced the 
 other for a moment two inflexible wills. For Mrs. 
 Hollister had made one error, and that fatal, in train- 
 
 [88] 
 
CHAPTER SIX 
 
 ing her daughter. She had not broken her will in 
 childhood, when the stiffest inherited will can be made 
 to yield; she had only subdued it, driven it to cover. 
 She had left her her individuality. But she did not 
 know this; so, she saw her daughter's looks, saw her 
 daughter leave the room with resolution in every curve 
 of her figure, and was not in the least disturbed as to 
 the event. The idea that she, Maria Hollister, could 
 be defied by anyone in her family or out of it could 
 not form in her mind. " It is fortunate," she said to 
 herself, " that Wallingford is leaving early in the 
 morning. I'll announce the engagement at dinner to 
 night." 
 
 Catherine went to change her dress, and then 
 searched for Frothingham. He was alone in the 
 billiard room, half asleep, on one of the wall lounges. 
 At sight of him she saw him before he saw her 
 her courage wavered. Yes, he was a decent sort of 
 chap; and she was treating him badly, despicably 
 had bargained fairly with him, had used the contract 
 publicly to aggrandise herself at his expense, was 
 about to break her contract and humiliate him, injure 
 him, through no fault of his. He had been fair with 
 her, she had been false with him, was about to be base. 
 
 [89] 
 
GOLDEN FLEECE 
 
 " I can't," she said to herself. " At least, not in cold 
 blood." 
 
 He saw her, and his face lighted up. She smiled, 
 nodded, hurried through the billiard room, and disap 
 peared into the hall beyond. As she turned its angle 
 her knees became shaky and her face white. Then 
 Wallingford suddenly appeared at the conservatory 
 door. He came toward her as if he were going to pass 
 without stopping. But he halted. 
 
 "Well? "he said. 
 
 She leaned against the wall. Her throat was dry 
 and her eyelids were trembling. 
 
 " What is it? " he asked gently. 
 
 She hung her head. 
 
 "Don't be afraid to say it to me" he urged. 
 " There isn't anything you couldn't say to me." 
 
 " Do you do you do you care for me ? " she said, 
 in a queer little choked, squeaky voice. 
 
 He laughed slightly, and came close to her and 
 looked down at her. " You're the only thing in all 
 this world I do care for," he said. " Why ? " 
 
 " Oh, nothing don't follow me," and she darted 
 back toward the billiard room. 
 
 Frothingham was still there, seated now at the open 
 
 [90] 
 

 'Just my rotten luck," he muttered 
 
CHAPTER SIX 
 
 fire. " Ah you ! I'm glad you've come back," he 
 drawled. 
 
 " I want you to release me from my engagement," 
 she said. 
 
 His jaw dropped, and he stared stupidly at her. He 
 could hardly believe that this impetuous, energetic 
 creature was the languorous, affected, dreamy Cath 
 erine. 
 
 " I mean it," she sped on. " I've no excuse to make 
 for myself. But I can't marry you. And you ought 
 to be glad you're rid of me." 
 
 Her tone instantly convinced him that he was done 
 for. He turned a sickly yellow, and put his head be 
 tween his hands and stared into the fire. His brain 
 was in a whirl. " Just my rotten luck," he muttered. 
 
 " I don't hope that you'll forgive me," she was say 
 ing. " You couldn't have any respect for me. I'm 
 only saving a few little shreds of self-respect. 
 I'm " 
 
 " You mustn't do it, Catherine. You mustn't, 
 you " he interrupted, rising and facing her. 
 
 " I must be free. I care for someone else. Don't 
 discuss it, please. Just say you let me go." 
 
 " It ain't right." Cupidity and vanity were lashing 
 
 [91] 
 
CC 
 
 u 
 
 GOLDEN FLEECE 
 
 his anger into a storm. " You can't go back you've 
 gone too far. Why, we're as good as married." 
 
 " Don't make me any more ashamed than I am/' 
 she pleaded humbly. 
 
 No, I can't release you," he said with cold fury. 
 
 I can't permit myself to be trifled with." He knew 
 that he was taking the wrong tack, that he ought to 
 play the wounded lover. But his feeling for her was 
 so small, and his anger so great, that he could not. 
 
 She was almost hysterical. She felt as though she 
 were struggling desperately against some awful force 
 that was imprisoning her. " Let me go. Please, let 
 me go," she gasped. 
 
 " No ! " he said, arrogance in his voice the arro 
 gance of a man used to women who let men rule them. 
 
 Her eyes flashed. " Then I release myself ! " she 
 exclaimed haughtily, with a change of front so swift 
 that it startled him. " And don't you dare ever speak 
 of it to me again ! " 
 
 She slowly left the room, her head high. But her 
 haughtiness subsided as rapidly as it had risen, and by 
 the time she reached her own apartment she was ready 
 to fling herself down for a miserable cry and she did. 
 " If I could only get him out of the house," she wailed. 
 
 [92] 
 
CHAPTER SIX 
 
 Frothingham debated his situation. " The thing to 
 do," he concluded, " is to go straight off to her 
 father." He had not yet become convinced that in 
 America man occupies a position in the family radi 
 cally different from his position in England. He 
 found Hollister writing in his study. 
 
 " Mr. Hollister," he began. 
 
 Hollister raised his head until it was tilted so far 
 back that he could see Frothingham through the 
 glasses that were pinching in the extreme end of his 
 long nose. " Oh Lord Frothingham yes ! " He 
 laid down his pen. " What can I do for you? ' : 
 
 Frothingham seated himself in a solemn dignity 
 that hid his nervousness. " For several weeks your 
 daughter and I have been engaged. We we " 
 
 Hollister smiled good-humouredly. " Before you 
 go any further, my boy," he interrupted kindly, " I 
 warn you that you're barking up the wrong tree." 
 
 " I beg your pardon," said Frothingham stiffly. 
 
 " The person you want to see is the girl's mother. 
 She attends to all that end of the business. I've got 
 enough trouble to look after at my own end." 
 
 " What I have to say can be said properly only to 
 
 her father as the head of the family." 
 
 [93] 
 
GOLDEN FLEECE 
 
 " But I'm not the head of the family. I'm not sure 
 that I know who is. Sometimes I think it's my wife, 
 again I suspect Catherine." 
 
 " Your daughter now refuses to abide by her en 
 gagement," said Frothingham, in desperation at this 
 untimely levity. 
 
 Hollister took off his glasses and examined them on 
 both sides with great care. " Well," he said at last, 
 " I suppose that settles it." 
 
 Frothingham stared. " I beg pardon, but it does 
 not settle it." 
 
 Hollister gave him a look of fatherly sympathy. 
 " I guess it does. You can't marry her if she won't 
 have you. And if she won't have you why, she 
 won't." 
 
 " You treat the matter lightly." Frothingham had 
 a bright red spot in either cheek. " You do not seem 
 to be conscious of the painful position in which she 
 places you." 
 
 " Good Heavens, Frothingham ! What have I got 
 to do with it? You ain't engaged to me. She's 
 got the right to say what she'll do with her 
 self." 
 
 Frothingham rose. " I was under the impression, 
 
 [94] 
 
CHAPTER SIX 
 
 sir, that I was dealing with a gentleman who would 
 appreciate the due of a gentleman." 
 
 Hollister's eyebrows came down, and a cruel line 
 suddenly appeared at each corner of his mouth. Just 
 then Mrs. Hollister entered. Intuitively she leaped to 
 the right conclusion. " The idiot ! " she said to her 
 self. " Why didn't he come to me? " Then she said 
 smoothly, almost playfully, to " the idiot '* : " Has 
 Catherine been troubling you with her mood this morn 
 ing?" 
 
 Frothingham's face brightened her mood ! Then 
 there was hope. 
 
 " You ought not to pay any attention to her 
 moods," Mrs. Hollister went on with a smile. " She's 
 very nervous at times. But it passes." 
 
 " She told me flat that our engagement was off," 
 said Frothingham. " I came to her father, naturally. 
 She seemed to be in earnest." 
 
 Mrs. Hollister continued to smile. " Don't concern 
 yourself about the matter, Lord Frothingham," she 
 replied in her kindliest voice. " Catherine will be all 
 right again to-morrow at the latest. She has been do 
 ing too much lately for a young girl under the ex 
 citement of an engagement." 
 
 [95] 
 
GOLDEN FLEECE 
 
 Hollister, who had been looking hesitatingly 
 from his wife to Frothingham, went to the wall and 
 pressed an electric button. When the servant ap 
 peared he said : " Please ask Miss Catherine to come 
 here." 
 
 Mrs. Hollister turned on him, her eyes flashing. 
 " Catherine is in no state to bear " 
 
 Hollister returned her look calmly, then repeated his 
 order. The servant looked uneasily from the husband 
 to the wife, saw that Mrs. Hollister was not going to 
 speak, made a deprecating bow, and withdrew. In a 
 few minutes it seemed a long time to the three, wait 
 ing in silence Catherine appeared. Her eyes were 
 swollen slightly, but that was the only sign of pertur 
 bation. Mrs. Hollister said to Frothingham : "I think 
 it would be best that her father and I talk with her 
 alone first." 
 
 Frothingham instantly rose. With eyes pleadingly 
 upon Catherine he was nearing the door when Hollis 
 ter spoke it was in a voice neither Frothingham nor 
 even Catherine had heard from him or suspected him 
 of having at his command. " Please be seated, Lord 
 Frothingham. The best way to settle this business is 
 to settle it." 
 
 [96] 
 
CHAPTER SIX 
 
 Frothingham could not have disobeyed that voice, 
 and he saw with a sinking heart that at the sound of 
 it Mrs. Hollister looked helpless despair. 
 
 " Catherine," said her father, " do you, or do you 
 not, wish to marry Lord Frothingham ? " 
 
 " I won't marry him," replied Catherine. She gave 
 Frothingham a contemptuous look. " I told him so a 
 while ago." 
 
 Mrs. Hollister's eyes blazed. " Have you forgotten 
 what I said to you? " she demanded of her daughter, 
 her voice shrill with fury. 
 
 " No, mother," Catherine answered slowly ; " but 
 I cannot change my mind. I cannot marry Lord 
 Frothingham." 
 
 An oppressive silence fell. After a moment Froth 
 ingham bowed coldly, and left the room. Mrs. Hol 
 lister started up to follow him. " One word, Maria," 
 said her husband. " I wish you to understand that 
 this matter is settled. Nothing more is to be said 
 about it either to Catherine or to that young man 
 not another word." 
 
 Mrs. Hollister was white to the lips. " I under 
 stand," she replied, with a blasting look at her daugh 
 ter. And she followed Frothingham to try to pacify 
 
 [97] 
 
GOLDEN FLEECE 
 
 him she knew her husband too well not to know that 
 her dream of a titled son-in-law was over. 
 
 When she was gone Catherine sank limp into a 
 chair. " She'll never forgive me," she exclaimed de 
 spondently. 
 
 Hollister nodded in silent assent. After a few min 
 utes he said : " It's been fifteen years since she made 
 me cross her in a matter I sha'n't speak of. And she 
 remembers it against me to-day as if it had happened 
 an hour ago. The sooner you find your man, Katie, 
 and marry him, the better off you'll be that's my ad 
 vice." He smiled with grim humour as he added, 
 " And I ought to know." Then he patted her en 
 couragingly on the shoulder with a hand that looked 
 as if it could hold the helm steady through any tem 
 pest. 
 
 [98] 
 
VII 
 
 FROTHINGHAM had gone direct to his apart 
 ment. " Get my traps together at once," he 
 said to his man Hutt, whose father had been 
 his father's man. He threw himself into a chair in his 
 sitting-room, and tried to think, to plan. But he was 
 still dazed from the long fall and the sudden stop. 
 Presently Hutt touched him. 
 
 " Well well what is it ? " he asked, looking stu 
 pidly up at the round, stupid face. 
 
 " Beg pardon, my lord," replied the servant, " but 
 Hi've spoke to you twice. Mrs. Hollister wishes to 
 know hif you'll kindly come to 'er in 'er sitting-room." 
 
 Frothingham found Mrs. Hollister's maid waiting 
 for him in the hall. He followed her to the heavily 
 perfumed surroundings of pale blue silk, both plain 
 and brocaded, in which Mrs. Hollister lived. He lis 
 tened to her without hearing what she said thinking 
 of it afterward he decided that she had been incoherent 
 and not very tactful, and that her chief anxiety had 
 
 [99] 
 
GOLDEN FLEECE 
 
 been lest he might do something to cause scandal. He 
 remembered that when he had said he would go at once 
 she had tried to persuade him to stay as if leaving 
 were not the only possible course. He gradually re 
 covered his self-command, and through weakness, 
 through good nature, through contempt of his hosts, 
 and through policy, he acted upon the first principle 
 of the code for fortune-hunters of every degree and 
 kind : " Be near-sighted to insults, and far-sighted to 
 apologies." 
 
 Surveying the wreck from his original lodgings at 
 the Waldorf, he found three mitigations first, that 
 the engagement had not been announced ; second, that 
 he had not written Evelyn anything about it; third, 
 that it was impossible for " middle-class people " such 
 as the Hollisters to insult him " if I wallow with 
 that sort, I can't expect anything else, can I ? >: To 
 cheer himself he had several drinks and took an account 
 of stock. He found he was ninety-three pounds 
 richer than when he landed he played " bridge " 
 well, and had been in several heavy games at Lake-in- 
 the-Wood, and had been adroit in noting the stupid 
 players, and so arranging partners that he could bene 
 fit by them ; also he had been lucky in a small way at 
 
 [100] 
 
CHAPTER SEVEN 
 
 picking the numbers at Canfield's the few times he had 
 trusted himself to go there. " Not so bad," he said. 
 " It's a long game, and that was only the first hand." 
 He hesitated at the indicator, then instead of ordering 
 another drink went to the telephone and called up 
 Longview's house. It gave him courage, and a sense 
 that he was not altogether friendless and forlorn, to 
 hear Honoria's voice again. " Shall you be in late 
 this afternoon ? " he asked. 
 
 " Why ! I didn't know you were in town or are 
 you calling me from Catherine's ? " 
 
 " Yes I'm in town," he replied, and he felt that 
 she must notice the strain in his voice. 
 
 " Oh ! " 
 
 " I'm up to stay," he went on, his voice improving. 
 
 " Oh yes come at half -past five." 
 
 " Thank you good-by." He held the receiver to 
 his ear until he heard her ring off. " Good girl, Hon- 
 oria," he muttered. " Not like those beastly cads." 
 He went to the club, lunched with Browne, whom he 
 found there, was beaten by him at billiards, losing ten 
 dollars, and returned to the hotel to dress. 
 
 At a quarter-past five he started up the avenue 
 afoot a striking figure in clothes made in the 
 
 [101] 
 
GOLDEN FLEECE 
 
 extreme of the English fashion; but he would have 
 been striking in almost any sort of dress, so distin 
 guished was its pale, rather supercilious face, with 
 one of his keen eyes ambushed behind that eye 
 glass, expressive in its expressionlessness. The occu 
 pants of every fifth or sixth carriage in the fashion 
 able parade bowed to him with a friendliness that gave 
 him an internal self-possession as calm as the external 
 immobility which his control of his features enabled 
 him always to present to the world. 
 
 He told Honoria his story in outline " the surest 
 way to win a woman's friendship is to show her that 
 you trust her," he reflected. She was sympathetic in 
 a way that soothed, not hurt, his vanity ; but she sided 
 with Catherine. " I half suspected her of being in 
 love with Joe," she said, " but I thought he was a con 
 firmed bachelor. He played all round you that's the 
 truth. I'm going to say something rather disagree 
 able but I think it's necessary." 
 
 " I want I need your advice," he replied. 
 
 " You've been relying entirely too much on your 
 title. You've let yourself be misled by what the news 
 papers say about that sort of thing. You don't un 
 derstand I didn't understand until I'd been here a 
 
 [102] 
 
CHAPTER SEVEN 
 
 while, and had got my point of view straight. They're 
 not so excited about titles now as they used to be when 
 they had no fashionable society of their own, and had 
 to look abroad to gratify their instinct for social posi 
 tion. If you'd come five years ago " 
 
 " Just my rotten luck," he muttered. 
 
 " Your title is a good thing properly worked. It 
 will catch a woman, especially if she's not well forward 
 * in the push,' as they say. But it won't hold her. 
 She's likely to use you to strengthen her social posi 
 tion, and then to drop you, unless she has lived in 
 England, and has had her head turned, and has be 
 come like your middle classes." 
 
 " But my family is away better than Surrey's." 
 
 " Your family counts for nothing here. New York 
 knows nothing and cares nothing about birth. En 
 glishmen count by title only." 
 
 " Then they ran after Surrey because he was a 
 Duke?" 
 
 " Perhaps to a certain extent," replied Honoria. 
 " But I fancy the principal reason was that they 
 wished to see what it was Helen had paid such a tall 
 price for. If he had come here quietly to marry a 
 poor girl there'd have been no stir." 
 
 [103] 
 
GOLDEN FLEECE 
 
 " Money money nothing but money always 
 money," sneered Frothingham. He saw the twinkle 
 in Honoria's eyes. " But, I say," he protested, " you 
 know that we over there do care for other things, 
 too." 
 
 " So do they here, but what do they care for, first 
 and most, in both countries? " 
 
 He smiled. 
 
 " It's money first there and here, and the world 
 over," she went on with bitterness under her raillery. 
 " And among our kind of people everything else 
 sentiment, art, good taste even is far behind it. How 
 could it be otherwise? We've got to have money 
 lots of money or we can't have the things we most 
 crave luxury, deference, show. But where are you 
 dining to-night ? " 
 
 " Probably at the club." 
 
 " Excuse me a minute. I'll just see if Mrs. Galloway 
 will let me bring you. We're going to the opera 
 afterward." She looked at him quizzically. " I 
 think I'll arrange to ship you off to Boston. A little 
 vacation just now will do you no harm. And Boston 
 might interest you." 
 
 When she returned from the telephone it was with 
 
 [104] 
 
CHAPTER SEVEN 
 
 a cordial invitation for him from Mrs. Galloway. He 
 said : " I've a letter to a Mrs. Saalfield in Boston. Do 
 you know her? ' : 
 
 " Yes she's here now, I think. But you would 
 better keep away from her. She wouldn't do you the 
 least good." 
 
 " Is she out of ' the push '? " 
 
 " Oh, no she leads it there, I believe. But she 
 wouldn't let you look at a girl or a widow, or any 
 woman but herself. She's about forty years old it 
 used to be the woman of thirty, but it's the woman of 
 forty now. Everywhere she goes she trails a train of 
 young men. They're afraid to look away from her. 
 They watch her like a pack of hungry collies, and 
 she watches them like a hen-hawk." 
 
 There was more than the spirit of friendly helpful 
 ness in Honoria's plan to send him away to Boston. 
 The bottom fact hidden even from herself was that 
 she was tired of him. He seemed to her helpless and 
 incapable, worse in that respect than any but the very 
 poorest specimens of men she had met in New York. 
 She felt that he was looking to her to see him through 
 an adventure of which she disapproved rather than 
 approved. She had no intention of accepting such a 
 
 [105] 
 
GOLDEN FLEECE 
 
 burden, yet she was too good-natured and liked him 
 too well to turn him abruptly adrift. 
 
 Mrs. Galloway took him in to dinner, and it was not 
 until the second act of the opera that he had a chance 
 to talk with the Boston woman in the party Mrs. 
 Staunton. Then he slipped into the chair behind her ; 
 but she would not talk while the curtain was up. 
 Grand opera bored him, so he passed the time in gaz 
 ing round the grand-tier boxes the Galloway box 
 was to the left of the centre. The twilight was not 
 dark enough to hide the part of the show that inter 
 ested him. He knew New York fashionable society 
 well now, and as he looked he noted each woman and 
 recalled how many millions she represented. " Gad, 
 how rich they are these beggars," he thought envi 
 ously. And he was seized by a mild attack of what an 
 eminent New York lawyer describes as " the fury of 
 the parasite " that hate which succeeds contempt in 
 the parasite as its intended victim eludes it. 
 
 When the curtain went down on the last of seven 
 uproarious calls the opera was " Carmen," and Calve 
 was singing it Mrs. Staunton's disdainful expres 
 sion gave him the courage to say : " Ghastly row they 
 
 make, eh? J! 
 
 [106] 
 
CHAPTER SEVEN 
 
 Mrs. Staunton was perhaps fifty years old, long and 
 thin, with a severe profile and a sweet and intelligent, 
 if somewhat too complacent, front face. " Calve 
 sings rather well in spots," she said. " But I doubt 
 if Boston would have given her seven calls." 
 
 The mirthful shine of Frothingham's right eye 
 might have been a reflection from his glass ; again, it 
 might have been really in his eye where it seemed to be 
 Mrs. Staunton was so seated that she could not see 
 him as he talked over her shoulder into her ear. 
 " Really," was all he said. 
 
 " You've not been at Boston? " asked Mrs. Staun 
 ton. 
 
 " Not yet. I thought it would be well to get ac 
 climated, as it were, before I ventured away from New 
 York." 
 
 " You will have it to do over again," said Mrs. 
 Staunton. " We are very different. Here money is 
 king and god, and " Mrs. Staunton cast a super 
 cilious glance round the brilliant and beautiful, and 
 even dazzling, grand tier. " You see the result. 
 Really, New York is becoming intolerably vulgar. I 
 come here rarely, and leave as soon as I decently can. 
 But one can't stay here even for a few days without 
 
 [107] 
 
GOLDEN FLEECE 
 
 being corrupted. The very language is corrupt here, 
 and among those who call themselves the best people." 
 
 " Really ! Really, now ! " said Frothingham. 
 
 " Indeed, yes. In Boston even the lower classes 
 speak English." 
 
 " You don't say." Frothingham's drawl was calm ; 
 he put upon his eyeglass the burden of looking 
 astonished interest. 
 
 " It must fret your nerves to listen to the speech 
 here," continued Mrs. Staunton. " It's a dialect as 
 harsh and vulgar as most of the voices." 
 
 " It will be a great pleasure to hear the language 
 spoken as it is at home though I can't say that I 
 mind it here. Yes I shall be glad to see Boston." 
 
 Mrs. Staunton lifted her eyebrows and looked 
 politely amused. " But we don't speak as you speak 
 in England. I didn't say that." 
 
 " Oh I thought you were by way of saying they 
 spoke English at Boston." 
 
 " So I did. I meant that we speak correctly. You 
 English speak very incorrectly. Your upper class is 
 even more slovenly in that respect than your middle 
 class." 
 
 Frothingham looked interest and inquiry. " Ah 
 
 [108] 
 
CHAPTER SEVEN 
 
 yes quite so," he said. " I believe we do let our 
 middle class look after all that sort of thing. It saves 
 us a lot of bother." 
 
 " I'm glad you admit the truth." Mrs. Staunton 
 looked gracious and triumphant. " Last winter we 
 had the president of one of the colleges at Oxford 
 with us a very narrow man." 
 
 " Frightful persons, all that sort, / think," said 
 Frothingham. 
 
 " I'm not astonished that you think so," replied 
 Mrs. Staunton. " He it was Mr. Stebbins scoffed 
 at the idea that Boston spoke English. He insisted 
 that whatever your upper class speaks is English, 
 that they have the right to determine the lan 
 guage." 
 
 That was Frothingham's own notion, but he gave 
 no sign. " Stebbins is a hideous old jabberwock," he 
 said, glad that the orchestra was beginning. 
 
 He had accidently, but naturally, stumbled into the 
 road to Mrs. Staunton's good graces. She wanted ac 
 quiescent listeners only; he disliked talking and ab 
 horred argument. She was living at the Waldorf 
 also, and this gave him his opportunity. She found 
 him most agreeable. He had the great advantage of 
 
 [109] 
 
GOLDEN FLEECE 
 
 being free all day, while her New York men friends 
 were at work then and she did not like women. She 
 insisted it was only the New York woman " so 
 trivial, so childish in her tastes for show and for far 
 cical amusements " that she did not like ; but the fact 
 was that she did not like any women anywhere. Nom 
 inally, she was in New York to visit her sister, Mrs. 
 Findlay, but she rarely saw her. " I can't endure 
 staying in Henrietta's house," she explained to Froth- 
 ingham. " She has fallen from grace. If anything, 
 she out-Herods the New York women always the way 
 with renegades. And she lets her housekeeper and her 
 butler run her household dust everywhere, things go 
 ing to ruin, the servants often drunk. If I were in 
 the house I could not be silent; so I stay at a hotel 
 when I make my annual visit to her." 
 
 She invited Frothingham to come to her at Boston 
 in the second week in January and he accepted. She 
 had said never a word to him about her niece, Cecilia 
 Allerton, and for that very reason he knew that she 
 was revolving some plan for bringing them together. 
 He also knew that Cecilia Allerton's father, head of 
 the great Boston banking house of Allerton Brothers 
 & Monson, was rich enough to give his daughter the 
 
 [110] 
 
CHAPTER SEVEN 
 
 dower necessary to admission into the Gordon-Beau- 
 vais family. 
 
 In the two weeks between Mrs. Staunton's departure 
 and his engagement to follow her he did not neglect 
 his business. But his assiduity was wasted. He saw 
 chances to marry, and marry well but no dowers 
 worth his while. Many mothers beamed on him, and 
 their daughters brightened at his approach; but not 
 one of the families that might have had him for the 
 faintest hinting showed any matrimonial interest in 
 him. One mother, Mrs. Brandon, actually snubbed 
 him as if he were a mere vulgar, poor, and untitled 
 fortune-hunter and the snub was unprovoked, as he 
 was only courteous to Miss Brandon. When Froth- 
 ingham laughed over this incident to Honoria she said : 
 " Mrs. Brandon purposes to marry Estelle to Walter 
 Summit." 
 
 " That chuckle-head? Why, I found him in the 
 cloak-room at the Merivale dance the other night sit 
 ting with his big damp hands in his lap, and his mouth 
 hanging open. And he wasn't screwed, either." 
 
 " But Estelle isn't marrying him. She's marrying 
 his forty millions. With what she'll inherit from her 
 father and her uncle that will make her the third rich- 
 
 [in] 
 
GOLDEN FLEECE 
 
 est woman in New York. The fact that Walter is 
 slightly imbecile is rather in his favour she'll have a 
 free hand, and that's everything where a woman's am 
 bitious. If you Englishmen hadn't the reputation of 
 being masterful in your own households you'd have 
 less difficulty in marrying here. It was a bad day for 
 English marriages when the American woman learned 
 that England is a man's country. A girl brought up 
 as are the girls here nowadays hates to abdicate and 
 she don't have to if she marries an American." 
 
 " I've heard that all women like a master," sug 
 gested Frothingham. 
 
 " So do men. Everyone likes to bow to real supe 
 riority and serve it, when he or she finds it. But the 
 difficulty comes in trying to convince a man or a wo 
 man that he or she has met a superior." 
 
 " Well, then perhaps women are more easily con 
 vinced than men." 
 
 Honoria smiled satirically. " They seem to be," 
 she replied, " because they are prudent. But if some 
 husbands only knew what their wives really thought, 
 they might be less easy in their vanity than they are." 
 
 " That ain't true of our English women," said 
 Frothingham. 
 
CHAPTER SEVEN 
 
 " No and why ? Because, milord, they don't 
 think." 
 
 " Well my wife can do as she jolly well pleases if 
 she'll only let me alone." 
 
 " If she's an American you may be sure she will do 
 as she jolly well pleases and you may also be sure 
 that it won't please you to be jolly as she does it." 
 
 Just then a servant came in to say that Catherine 
 was at the door in her carriage, and wished to know 
 whether Honoria was at home. Honoria looked at 
 Frothingham inquiringly. 
 
 " As you please," said Frothingham, settling his 
 eyeglass firmly, and clearing his face of expression. 
 
 Honoria left him in the large drawing room, and 
 waited for Catherine in the adjoining smaller room. 
 " Lord Frothingham is here," she said in an under 
 tone, after they had kissed each the other. 
 
 Catherine paled and her eyes shifted. " Does he 
 know I'm here ? " she asked. 
 
 " Yes," replied Honoria, " but you needn't see him 
 if you don't wish." 
 
 Catherine reflected. " I'm certain to meet him 
 again some time, ain't I, dear ? " she said. " And it 
 might be more awkward than this." 
 
 [113] 
 
GOLDEN FLEECE 
 
 She advanced boldly with Honoria and put out her 
 hand to him, her face flushing, and a delightful plead 
 ing look in her eyes. " I'm so glad to see you again. 
 Lord Frothingham," she said. 
 
 " Ah thank you a great pleasure to me also, I'm 
 sure," he answered in his most expressionless tone. 
 " Are you staying in town ? ' : 
 
 " We came up yesterday to stay. Won't you 
 come to see us? Are you at the Waldorf? I do hope 
 we can get you for a dinner mamma's arranging for 
 the latter part of next week." 
 
 " Very good of you. But I'm just off to Boston." 
 
 He shook hands with her, then with Honoria. At 
 the door he turned, and a faint smile showed in his eye 
 glass and at the corners of his mouth. " Oh, I almost 
 forgot give my regards to Wallingford when you 
 see him won't you? " 
 
 Catherine looked gratefully at him. " Thank you 
 thank you," she said. " I know he'll be glad of a 
 friendly message from you. He's very fond of you." 
 
 " Really ? " drawled Frothingham. " That's charm 
 ing ! " He smiled with good-natured raillery. " He 
 had such a quaint way of showing it that I wasn't 
 
 quite certain." 
 
 [114] 
 
CHAPTER SEVEN 
 
 When he had bowed and dropped the heavy portiere 
 behind him Catherine went to the window. She stood 
 there until she had seen him enter his hansom and 
 drive away. 
 
 " How beautifully he dresses," she said absently to 
 Honoria. " And what distinguished manners he has 
 as if he'd been used to being a gentleman for ages 
 and ages." 
 
 She seated herself near the fire the tea-table was 
 between her and Honoria. " You didn't know that we 
 were engaged, did you ? " she went on, looking dream 
 ily into the fire. 
 
 " Were you ? " said Honoria she never betrayed 
 confidences. 
 
 " Yes. But I broke it off." 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 " I think," Catherine answered slowly, " I think 
 perhaps it was because I didn't feel at home with him 
 and I do with Joe. He knows how to manage me." 
 
 " Joe? Why, you used to act as if you disliked 
 him." 
 
 " So did I think so." Catherine sighed. " I 
 wish," she said after a moment, " that Joe had Beau- 
 vais House and the title." 
 
 [115] 
 
VIII 
 
 A' half-past four o'clock in a raw January 
 afternoon Frothingham descended from a 
 Pullman fiery furnace to adventure upon Bos 
 ton. As he drove to Mrs. Staunton's the rain sifted 
 through the cracks round the windows and doors of 
 the musty cab, and was deposited upon his face in a 
 greasy coating by currents of the iciest air he had felt 
 since he was last in Scotland. It was air that seemed 
 to mangle as it bit, that sent the chilled blood cower 
 ing to the depths of the body instead of bringing it 
 to the surface in healthful reaction. 
 
 " Loathsome ! " he muttered as he looked out on 
 either side. " Looks something like London no, 
 Liverpool. The people look English, too." A big, 
 dingy street car with bell wildly clanging darted from 
 a narrow side street into the narrow main street which 
 the cab was following. There was a bare escape from 
 a disastrous collision. " It's America, right enough, 
 
 he said. 
 
 [116] 
 
 99 
 
CHAPTER EIGHT 
 
 The rain was whirling in the savage wind, umbrel 
 las were tossing and twisting, impeding without in the 
 least sheltering the sullen throngs on the sidewalks. 
 Everything looked wet, and sticky, and chilly, and 
 forbidding. " They certainly are English," he said as 
 he noted the passing faces ; and he did not like it. In 
 New York he had been amused by the variety speci 
 mens of all nationalities, often several nationalities 
 struggling for expression in the same face. Here the 
 sameness was tiresome to him, and he missed the alert 
 look of New Yorkers of all kinds. 
 
 He began to feel somewhat better, however, when 
 he reached the wide front hall of Mrs. Staunton's big, 
 old-fashioned, comfortable house on the water side of 
 Beacon Street. And he felt still better when the but 
 ler showed him to the room he was to occupy the 
 furniture and hangings, the woodwork and wall paper, 
 sombre yet homelike in the light and warmth of an 
 open fire. At half-past five he entered the drawing 
 room in fairly good humour now that he and Hutt 
 were established arid safe from the weather. He joined 
 Mrs. Staunton and her daughter-in-law at the fire, 
 where they were cosily ensconced with a tea-table be 
 tween them. 
 
 [117] 
 
GOLDEN FLEECE 
 
 " You must have a cheerful impression of Boston," 
 said young Mrs. Staunton, called Mrs. Ridgie her 
 husband's name was Ridgeway. 
 
 " That wind was a bit nasty," admitted Frothing- 
 ham. " But I've forgiven and forgotten it. I always 
 spill my troubles as soon as ever I can." 
 
 " You'll detest Boston after New York," continued 
 Mrs. Ridgie. " I've lived here ten years. It's it's 
 a hole." 
 
 Her mother-in-law's expression was not pleasant, 
 and Frothingham saw at a glance that they disliked 
 each the other. " Virginia is from New York," she 
 said to him apologetically. " She determined in ad 
 vance not to like us, and she does not change her mind 
 easily." 
 
 " Us." Virginia smiled mockingly. " Mother 
 here," she said to Frothingham, " was born at a place 
 a few miles away Salem, where they burned 
 witches " 
 
 " Hanged witches none was burned," interrupted 
 Mrs. Staunton. 
 
 " Thank you, dear hanged witches. At any rate 
 she was born at Salem. And her people removed to 
 this very house more than forty years ago. The other 
 
 [118] 
 
CHAPTER EIGHT 
 
 day I was talking to old Judge Arkwright, and spoke 
 of my mother-in-law as a Bostonian. ' But,' said he, 
 * she's not a Bostonian. She's of Salem town.' Think 
 of it, Lord Frothingham ! She's lived here nearly 
 half a century, and she married a man whose family 
 has lived here two hundred years. And they still speak 
 and think of her as a stranger. That's Boston." 
 
 " It reminds me of home," said Frothingham. 
 " Very different, from New York, isn't it ? I asked 
 the woman I took in to dinner the other night where 
 her parents came from. ' Good Lord, don't ask me! ' 
 she said. * All I know about it is that they came in a 
 hurry and never went back.' ; 
 
 " How sensible ! " said Mrs. Ridgie, the more en 
 thusiastically for her mother-in-law's look of disgust. 
 " You'll notice that people on this side never talk of 
 their ancestors unless there's something wrong some 
 where with themselves." 
 
 Mrs. Staunton restrained herself. " You'll give 
 Lord Frothingham a very false idea of this country, 
 Virgie," she said with softness in her voice and irrita 
 tion in her eyes. 
 
 " Oh, he's certain to get that anyhow. He'll only 
 see one kind of people while he's here, and though they 
 
 [119] 
 
GOLDEN FLEECE 
 
 think they're the whole show they don't amount to 
 that." At " that " she snapped her fingers so loudly 
 and suddenly that both Mrs. Staunton and Frothing- 
 ham started. " If you came really to know this coun 
 try," she went on, " you'd find out that just as soon as- 
 people here begin to pose as 6 our best people,' ' our 
 best society,' and all that rot, they begin to amount to 
 nothing. They're has-beens, or on the way to it. We 
 don't stand still here not even in Boston. We're al 
 ways going up or coming down." 
 
 After a silence Mrs. Staunton ventured to say, " I 
 think you'll find, Lord Frothingham, that the tone of 
 Boston is, as I told you, far higher than New York's." 
 
 " Really ! " Frothingham looked slightly alarmed. 
 " That's bad news," he said. " I don't go in for a 
 very high tone, you know. I'm keyed rather low, I 
 should say." 
 
 " You needn't be frightened," said Mrs. Ridgie. 
 " They beat the air a good deal here. But, if you'll 
 be patient and not encourage 'em, they'll soon get 
 down to the good old business of ravelling reputations. 
 At that they're far superior to New York." 
 
 Mrs. Staunton looked vigorous dissent, but said 
 nothing. They listened for a few minutes to the 
 
 [120] 
 
CHAPTER EIGHT 
 
 drowsy crackling of the wood fire, and to the futile 
 beat of the storm against the windows. Then Mrs. 
 Ridgie rose. " I'll see you at dinner," she said to 
 Frothingham. " I'll forgive you for being so cross to 
 me, belle-mere," she said to Mrs. Staunton, patting 
 her on the cheek. Then her pretty little figure and 
 pretty, pert face vanished. Mrs. Staunton frowned at 
 the place where she had been she disliked Virgie's 
 hoydenish movements almost as much as her demon- 
 strativeness ; in her opinion, " no thoroughly respect 
 able woman laughs loudly, uses slang, or indulges in 
 public kissing and embracing." 
 
 They were ten at dinner that night, and Frothing 
 ham, seated between Mrs. Staunton and a middle-aged, 
 stiff, and homely Mrs. Sullivan, fought off depression 
 by drinking the champagne steadily " vile stuff," he 
 said to himself, " and bad cooking, and a dull old 
 woman on either side. And what's this rot they're 
 talking?" 
 
 The conversation was of a Buddhist priest who was 
 making converts among " the very best people." Mrs. 
 Sullivan was contending that he was a fraud, and that 
 his teachings were immoral. Mrs. Staunton was de 
 fending him, assisted by a sallow, black-whiskered, 
 
 [121] 
 
GOLDEN FLEECE 
 
 long-haired young man on the opposite side of the 
 table a Mr. Gilson. 
 
 Frothingham would not even pretend to listen. His 
 look and his thoughts wandered down the table to Ce 
 cilia Allerton. 
 
 Her slender paleness was foiled by two stout red and 
 brown men Ridgeway Staunton and Frank Morti 
 mer. They were eating steadily, with the slow, linger 
 ing movements of the jaw which proclaim the man or 
 the beast that wishes to get food into the mouth rather 
 than into the stomach. Between forkfuls they drank 
 champagne, holding it in the mouth and swallowing 
 deliberately. Cecilia was evidently oblivious of them 
 and of the rest of her surroundings. " She looks 
 sickly," thought Frothingham, " and an iceberg." 
 
 She had a small head, a high, narrow forehead, a 
 long, narrow face pale, almost gaunt. The expres 
 sion of her mouth was prim to severity. But her eyes, 
 large and brilliant brown, and full of imagination, 
 contradicted the coldness of the rest of her face, and 
 gave her a look that was certainly distinction, if not 
 beauty. " I wonder what she's thinking about? " said 
 Frothingham to himself. " Buddhism, I wager. How 
 English she looks. But they all do, for that matter, 
 
CHAPTER EIGHT 
 
 except this long-haired beast opposite. He looks a 
 Spaniard, or something else Southern and dirty." 
 
 " Did you find that the New York women swore 
 much, Lord Frothingham ? " 
 
 He started. It was the Puritanic-looking Mrs. Sul 
 livan. " I beg pardon," he said, turning his head so 
 that his entrenched eye was trained upon her. 
 
 " The New York women," replied Mrs. Sullivan. 
 " Were they very profane? ' : 
 
 " Ah well that is Now, what would you 
 
 call profane? " asked Frothingham in his driest drawl. 
 " Damn, and devil, and that sort? ' ; 
 
 " I should call them profane in a woman, and worse. 
 I should call them vulgar." 
 
 " Really ! " 
 
 "Shouldn't you?" 
 
 " Ah, I don't know. I don't call things. What's 
 the use? ' : 
 
 " But you must have opinions." 
 
 " Lots of 'em lots of 'em a new set every day. 
 It's a good idea to look at everything from all sorts of 
 directions, don't you think? " 
 
 " If one has no sense of responsibility. But I know 
 you have. One of the characteristics I particularly ad- 
 
 [123] 
 
GOLDEN FLEECE 
 
 mire in the English upper class is their sense of re 
 sponsibility. I think it splendid, the way they sup 
 port the Church, and so set an example to the lower 
 classes." 
 
 " I don't go in for that yet I stop in bed. It's not 
 expected of one until he's head of a family. When I 
 am, of course I'll tuck my book under my arm and 
 toddle away on Sunday morning to do my duty. I 
 think it's rather funny, don't you? We do as we jolly 
 please all week and then on Sunday, when there's 
 nothing naughty going on, anyhow, we do our duty. 
 Cleverest thing in the British Constitution, that ! " 
 
 " But you believe in your your church, don't 
 you ? " 
 
 " Believe? To be sure. Everyone does, except 
 ghastly middle-class cranks. Some of 'em go crazy 
 and are pious every day. Others go crazy and chuck 
 it all. They run to extremes that's bad form. I 
 don't like extremes." 
 
 Mrs. Sullivan looked at Frothingham suspiciously. 
 His face was always serious, but the eyeglass and the 
 drawl and the shadow of a hint of irony in his tone 
 raised a doubt. She returned to her original question : 
 
 " They tell me that the women the fashionable women 
 
 [124] 
 
CHAPTER EIGHT 
 
 swear a great deal in New York now that it's the 
 latest fad." 
 
 " I can't say that they ever swore at me much," 
 replied Frothingham. " But then, you know, I'm 
 rather meek. It's possible they might if I'd baited 
 
 .. 
 
 A few of our women here those that hang round 
 horses and stables all the time have taken up swear 
 ing. It is said that they contracted the habit in New 
 York and Newport. But I doubted it." 
 
 " Perhaps it's the horses that make 'em swear," sug 
 gested Frothingham. " Horses are such stupid 
 brutes." 
 
 " And they smoke but that's an old story. All the 
 women smoke in New York, don't they ? " 
 
 " I'm not observant. You see, I don't see well un 
 less I look sharp." 
 
 Mrs. Sullivan smiled amiably. " You're very dis 
 creet, Lord Frothingham. You don't gossip I de 
 test it myself." 
 
 She talked to the man at her left, but soon turned 
 to him with : " Doesn't it shock you, the way divorce is 
 growing nowadays ? It's almost as bad in England, I 
 understand, as it is with us. We're taking up all the 
 
 [125] 
 
GOLDEN FLEECE 
 
 habits of the common sort of people. Really, I try to 
 be broad-minded, but I can't keep up with the rising 
 generation. A young married woman called on me this 
 afternoon she and her husband are of our best fami 
 lies. She told me she was engaged to a young married 
 man in New York. ' But,' said I, ' you're both mar 
 ried.' ' We're going to get our divorces in the spring,' 
 she said. She asked me not to say anything about her 
 engagement * for,' said she, ' we haven't announced 
 it. I've not told my husband yet that I'm going to 
 get a divorce, and my fiance hasn't told his wife.' 
 What do you think of that, Lord Frothingham? " 
 
 " Devilish enterprising, isn't it, now ? That's what 
 we call a Yankee notion. Do you think it '11 be a 
 go?" 
 
 " I've no doubt of it. She's extremely energetic 
 and conscienceless I'd say brazen, if she weren't a 
 lady." 
 
 When the women went into the drawing room Ridge- 
 way Staunton brought to Frothingham a tall, ascetic- 
 looking man, with the bald, smooth, bulging temples 
 and the sourly curled lips of habitual bad temper. 
 " Lord Frothingham, Mr. Allerton." They bowed 
 stiffly, and looked each at the other uncertainly. 
 
CHAPTER EIGHT 
 
 " I've heard much of you from my sister-in-law, 
 Mrs. Staunton," said Allerton. 
 
 " She's been very good to me," replied Frothing- 
 ham cordially. 
 
 " She's an admirable woman," said Allerton. " She 
 has been a mother more than a mother to my little 
 girl for years." 
 
 " Your daughter was most fortunate," replied 
 Frothingham, in a tone that was for him enthusiastic. 
 
 Allerton began to talk English politics ; and Froth 
 ingham, who, like Englishmen of all classes, knew his 
 country's politics thoroughly, was astonished at the 
 minuteness and accuracy of the American's knowledge. 
 But he was amazed to find that Allerton, though an 
 aristocrat and a Tory in the politics of his own coun 
 try, with narrow and bitter class views, was in English 
 politics a Liberal of the radical type a " little Eng- 
 lander " and a " Home Ruler." And he presently dis 
 covered that there were other inconsistencies equally 
 strange. For example, Allerton was savage in his ha 
 tred of all social innovations, was fanatical against the 
 morals and manners of the younger people in the lim 
 ited Boston set which he evidently regarded as the 
 pinnacle and pattern of the whole world, yet was al- 
 
 [127] 
 
GOLDEN FLEECE 
 
 most a sensualist in literature, art, and music. He 
 sneered at superstition, yet believed in ghosts and in 
 dreams. Intolerant with the acidity of a bad diges 
 tion and a poor circulation, he would cheerfully have 
 jailed and hanged all who were intolerant of those 
 things of which he was tolerant and he thought him 
 self tolerant to the verge of laxness. Finally, he was a 
 theoretical democrat, yet had a reverence for his own 
 ancestry, and for the title and ancestry of Frothing- 
 ham, that even to Frothingham seemed amusing and 
 contemptible. 
 
 At first Frothingham feared lest he should ex 
 press some opinion that would rouse the cold and tena 
 cious dislike of Allerton. But he soon saw that, be 
 cause of his title and descent, he was regarded by 
 the banker as privileged and exempt from criticism. 
 Just as Mrs. Staunton and Mrs. Sullivan thought 
 Frothingham's slang even when it trenched on pro 
 fanity not only tolerable but proper in him, so Aller 
 ton smiled with frosty indulgence upon his light, and 
 not very reverent, criticisms in politics, religion, 
 morals, and art. 
 
 " What do you think of him? " Mrs. Staunton asked 
 
 her brother-in-law, when the men rejoined the women. 
 
 [128] 
 
CHAPTER EIGHT 
 
 " A fine type of English gentleman," replied Aller- 
 ton ; " manly and dignified, and his mind is keen. I 
 like him." 
 
 " I'm going to take him to Cecilia," said she. 
 
 " I'm sure Cecilia will like him. I don't think she's 
 looking well, Martha." 
 
 " Poor child ! You can't expect a girl of her depth 
 of feeling, her spirituality, to recover soon. You must 
 remember, it's been only a year and three months. 
 This is the first time she's been out, isn't it ? " 
 
 " I should not have believed she could be so disobe 
 dient as she has been in the past year," said Allerton 
 sourly. " The night of the opening of the gallery I 
 ordered her to come down and help me receive. I shall 
 never forget that she locked herself in her room. It 
 shows how the poison of the example of the young peo 
 ple nowadays permeates." 
 
 " But that was nearly a year ago, Edward. Be 
 careful not to be harsh to her. She inherits your im- 
 periousness." Mrs. Staunton hesitated after " inher 
 its," because the look in her brother-in-law's eyes re 
 minded her that his wife her sister after enduring 
 for eight years the penitentiary he made of his 
 home, fled from him and refused to return, and 
 
 [129] 
 
GOLDEN FLEECE 
 
 lived by herself in a cottage at Brookline until her 
 death. 
 
 After talking to several of her guests, so that her 
 action might not seem pointed, Mrs. Staunton took 
 Frothingham where Cecilia was listening to Gilson's 
 animated exposition of the true, or Gilson, theory of 
 portrait painting. A moment after Frothingham was 
 introduced Mrs. Staunton took the reluctant Gilson 
 away. 
 
 Cecilia looked after him, a quizzical expression in 
 her eyes. " Do you know Mr. Gilson ? " she asked. 
 
 " No ; I've only just met him." 
 
 " What do you think of him ? 5! 
 
 " I can't say. I've barely seen him." 
 
 " But isn't Schopenhauer right where he says, 
 ' Look well at a human being the first time you see 
 him, for you will never see him again? ' 
 
 " I should say Gilson was not very clean, then. 
 Who is he?" 
 
 " He came here four years ago from we don't know 
 where, and exhibited a lot of his own paintings, most 
 of them portraits of himself in all sorts of strange at 
 titudes and clothes. Everybody ran after him we 
 
 have a new craze here each year, you know. That year 
 
 [130] 
 
Then you're not a Buddhist or a Spiritualist?' 
 
CHAPTER EIGHT 
 
 it was Gilson. A girl, a Miss Manners, married him. 
 If it hadn't been for that, he'd have been forgotten, 
 and would have disappeared. As it is, we still have 
 him with us. That's his wife on the sofa in the cor 
 ner." 
 
 Frothingham looked toward the enormously fat 
 woman disposed there, and gazing round vaguely, 
 with a sleepy, comfortable, complacent smile. " How 
 do you know it's a sofa she's sitting on ? " he asked. 
 
 " Because I saw it before she sat down," replied Ce 
 cilia. " Her fad is a diet of raw wheat. If she'd been 
 where you could see her at the table, you'd have no 
 ticed that she ate only raw wheat. She's served spe 
 cially everywhere since she got the idea last autumn. 
 She brings her wheat with her." 
 
 " And what is your fad ? you say everyone has a 
 fad." 
 
 " Everyone except me." She smiled pensively. 
 " I'm too serious for fads, I fear." 
 
 " Then you're not a Buddhist or a Spiritualist? " 
 he said, with a feeling of relief. 
 
 The colour flared into her face. " Spiritualism ! " 
 Her lips compressed, and seemed even thinner. Her 
 
 expression vividly suggested her father. " But that 
 
 [131] 
 
GOLDEN FLEECE 
 
 is not a fad ! Only the thoughtless and the ignorant 
 call it a fad." 
 
 Frothingham's face became blank. " This is a 
 time to sit tight," he said to himself. " She's looking 
 at me as if I were a witch and she were about to burn 
 no, hang me." 
 
 " It would be a dreary world, it seems to me," she 
 went on, her voice low, and a queer light in her soften 
 ing eyes, " if it were not for the friendship and guid 
 ance of those in the world beyond." 
 
 " Really ! " His tone might have meant almost 
 anything except the wonder and amusement it con 
 cealed. 
 
 Her father came to take her home. " We should 
 be glad to see you, Lord Frothingham, at our house," 
 he said graciously. " I hope you will let Mrs. Staun- 
 ton bring you." 
 
 " Thank you I'll ask her to." 
 
 As he watched Cecilia leave he said to himself, 
 " She's mad as a hatter or is it just Boston? " 
 
IX 
 
 BOUT a week after he met Lord Frothingham 
 at Mrs. Staunton's, Edward Allerton left his 
 bank an hour before luncheon time and went 
 to the Public Library. His look as he entered was un 
 doubtedly furtive; and as he drifted aimlessly round 
 the reading-room, declining the offers of assistance 
 from the polite and willing attendants, his manner 
 was such that had he been a stranger he would have 
 been watched as a suspicious character. He took sev 
 eral reference books from the cases, finally and most 
 carelessly of all, a Burke's Peerage. Half concealing 
 it with his overcoat, he bore it to a table and seated 
 himself. He turned the pages to where " Frothing 
 ham " appeared in large letters. There he stopped 
 and read at first nervously, soon with an attention 
 that shut out his surroundings: 
 
 Frothingham George Arthur Granby Delafere Gordon-Beau- 
 vais, seventh earl of Frothingham, Baron de Beauvais, b. at Beau- 
 vais House, Surrey, March 9, 1865, s. of Herbert Delafere Gordon- 
 Beauvais, sixth earl of F., and Maria Barstow, 2nd dau. of the 
 
 [133] 
 
GOLDEN FLEECE 
 
 Marquess of Radbourne. Succeeded on the death of his father, 
 Aug. 4, 1890. 
 
 Allerton studied the coat of arms, which originated, 
 in part, in the tenth century, so Burke said. He read 
 on and on through the description of the secondary 
 titles and other honours of his sister-in-law's guest, 
 into the two columns of small type which set forth 
 the history of the Gordon-Beauvais family its far 
 origin, Godfrey de Beauvais, a great lord in the time 
 of Charlemagne, so Burke declared; its many and 
 curious vicissitudes of fortune, its calamities in old 
 France through the encroachments of the Dukes of 
 Burgundy, which finally drove it, in poverty, but with 
 undiminished pride and unabated resolution to live 
 only by the sword and the tax-gatherer, to England 
 in the wake of William the Conqueror ; its restoration 
 there, and long and glorious lordship, so glorious that 
 it scorned the titles a mere Tudor, or Stuart, or Ger 
 man nobody could give until 1761, when it conde 
 scended to receive from George III the Earldom of 
 Frothingham. There were places in the narrative so 
 weak that even the adroit and sympathetic Burke 
 could not wholly cover them. But the Milk Street 
 
 banker saw them not. No child ever swallowed a tale 
 
 [134] 
 
CHAPTER NINE 
 
 of gnomes and fairies and magic vanishings and ap 
 paritions with a mind more set upon being fooled. 
 He read slowly to prolong the pleasing tale. And 
 when he came to the end he read it through again, 
 and found it all too short. 
 
 He started from his trance, glanced at his watch, 
 noted that no attendants were in sight, and stole 
 hastily away from the scene of his orgie. But in his 
 agitation he was guilty of the stupidity of the novice 
 he left the book on the reading-desk ; he left it open 
 at the second page of " Frothingham." An attend 
 ant was watching afar off; as soon as Allerton had 
 slipped away he swooped, full of idle yet energetic 
 curiosity. 
 
 When he saw that the book was a Burke's Peerage 
 he was puzzled ; then he turned back a page, and his 
 eye caught the name " Frothingham." Like all Bos 
 ton, he knew that the Earl was in town, was staying 
 at the Mrs. Staunton's, " on the water side of Beacon 
 Street." And like all Boston, he had heard the ru 
 mour that the Earl was trying to marry " Celia " 
 Allerton, the second heiress of Boston. Thus, the 
 sight of that name caused a smile of delight to irra 
 diate his fat, pasty face with its drapery of soft, scant 
 
 [135] 
 
GOLDEN FLEECE 
 
 grey whiskers. He looked round for someone to en 
 able him to enjoy his discovery of a great man's weak 
 ness by tattling it. He saw Gilson, industriously 
 " loading up " for a lecture on " colour in Greek 
 sculpture and architecture." 
 
 He hastened to him and touched him on the 
 shoulder. " Come with me," he whispered. 
 
 Gilson, a natural gossip, had not lived four years 
 in Boston without becoming adept in the local sign 
 language of his species. He rose and followed to the 
 table whereon was spread the damning proof of Aller- 
 ton's guilt. 
 
 " Look at this," whispered the attendant, pointing 
 to the name " Frothingham." 
 
 Gilson looked, first at the page, then at the attend 
 ant. His expression was disappointment he cared 
 not a rap about Frothingham or about Burke's genea 
 logical romances. 
 
 " But who do you think was sitting here ? " whis 
 pered the attendant, his eyes sparkling. " Sitting 
 here, reading away at this for more than an hour? r 
 
 " Frothingham ? " said Gilson, in the reading- 
 room undertone. " Those adventurers are always 
 crazy about themselves." 
 
 [136] 
 
CHAPTER NINE 
 
 " No it was Edward Allerton! ' As he hesi 
 tated on the name the attendant shot his big head for 
 ward; at the climax he jerked it back, regarding the 
 artist with delighted eyes. 
 
 " You don't say so ! " exclaimed Gilson, and then 
 they had a fit of silent laughter. 
 
 " Don't give me away," cautioned the attendant. 
 
 By nine o'clock the next night there was not a mem 
 ber of the Beacon Street set, whether living in Boston 
 or in Brookline and the other fashionable suburbs, who 
 had not heard the news ; and the mails were carrying it 
 to those at a distance. And wherever it was repeated 
 there was the same result derision, pretended con 
 tempt of such vulgar snobbishness, expressions of 
 wonder that an Allerton had descended to such low 
 trafficking. Of course none dared tell the Stauntons 
 and the Allertons or Frothingham. But Frothing- 
 ham, who saw everything through that monocle of his, 
 noted the covert smiles that now peeped at him, the 
 grins and nudgings and cranings when he and Cecilia 
 Allerton appeared in public together. 
 
 One of the many rules which Mr. Allerton had or 
 dained for the guidance of his household in the lines 
 he regarded as befitting the establishment of a gentle- 
 
 [137] 
 
GOLDEN FLEECE 
 
 man of family and tradition was that Cecilia must be 
 at the half -past seven o'clock breakfast with her 
 father. Usually he did not speak after his brief, 
 formal salutation a " Good-morning, Cecilia," and a 
 touch of his dry, thin lips to her forehead. But he 
 might wish to speak, and it would be a grave matter 
 if he should wish to speak and no one were there for 
 him to speak to. Besides, he always gave his orders 
 at breakfast his comments on the shortcomings in 
 the servants, or in Cecilia's housekeeping; his criti 
 cisms of her conduct. These " breakfasts of justice " 
 were not held often, because Cecilia made few mis 
 takes, and the maids Allerton kept no men servants 
 but a coachman had been long in the family service, 
 and had therefore been long cowed and trimmed and 
 squeezed to the Edward Allerton mould for menials. 
 But when a " breakfast of justice " was held it was 
 memorable. 
 
 Toward the end of the second week of Frothing- 
 ham's Boston sojourn Mr. Allerton laid aside his paper 
 at breakfast and looked at Cecilia. Agnes, the second 
 waitress, who always attended at breakfast, under 
 stood the signal, and at once left the room, closing the 
 door behind her. Cecilia gave a nervous little sigh, 
 
 [ 138] 
 
CHAPTER NINE 
 
 dropped her eyes, and put on the pale, calm expres 
 sion behind which she hid herself from her father. 
 
 " You were at Dr. Yarrow's lecture yesterday af 
 ternoon, I believe? " Allerton began. 
 
 Cecilia's nerves visibly relaxed as she noted that 
 his voice was not the dreaded voice of justice. " Yes, 
 sir," she replied. 
 
 " It was on the evidences of communication with 
 the spirit world, was it not? ' ! 
 
 " Yes, sir the fourth in the series." 
 
 " Who accompanied you ? " 
 
 " Aunt Martha and Lord Frothingham." 
 
 There was a pause, then Mr. Allerton coughed 
 slightly and said : " How do you like the young En 
 glishman, Cecilia? " 
 
 Cecilia lifted her eyes in a frightened glance that 
 dropped instantly before her father's solemn, rigid 
 gaze. " He's well-mannered and agreeable," she re 
 plied. " I like him as much as one can like a for 
 eigner." 
 
 " I'm surprised at your speaking of him as a for 
 eigner. He in fact, he seems to me quite like one of 
 our own young men, except that he lives upon a higher 
 plane, and shows none of the degeneration, the vul- 
 
 [139] 
 
GOLDEN FLEECE 
 
 garisation, I may say, with which our young men 
 have become infected through the overindulgence of 
 their parents and contact with New York." 
 
 Another long pause, and when Allerton spoke there 
 was a suggestion of combating opposition in his 
 voice. " I have been much impressed with the young 
 man. Titles are very deceptive. As you know, I 
 have no regard for them, or for the system which pro 
 duces and maintains them. But, his title aside, the 
 young man comes of a family that has the right sort 
 of blood. You must have noticed the evidences 
 of it in his face, and in his manners and char 
 acter?" 
 
 As the statement was put interrogatively, Cecilia 
 knew her duty too well not to reply. " He has a 
 strongly featured face," she said. " But it seemed to 
 me to indicate rather a race that had been great, but 
 was now small." 
 
 Allerton frowned. " I am sure that, properly es 
 tablished, he would have a distinguished career." He 
 paused, then went on in a tone Cecelia understood and 
 paled before : " It would be most satisfactory to me to 
 have my daughter married to him. I should regard 
 it as satisfactory in every way. You would be estab- 
 
 [140] 
 
CHAPTER NINE 
 
 lished in an honourable and dignified position. You 
 would exert in society and the wider world the influ 
 ence to which your birth and breeding entitle you. 
 You would maintain the traditions of your family 
 and strengthen his." 
 
 Cecilia shivered several times as he was speaking; 
 but when she spoke her low voice was firm. " But, 
 father, you know my heart is with Stanley." 
 
 Her father looked steadily at her the look she felt 
 like a withering flame. " I requested you more than 
 two years ago months before he died never to men 
 tion his name to me, and never to think of him seri 
 ously again. I repeat, it would be gratifying to me 
 if you were to marry Lord Frothingham. When is 
 he leaving your Aunt Martha's ? " 
 
 " Next Monday, I believe. He goes down to Brook- 
 line to Mrs. Ridgie." 
 
 " You are invited for the same time? * 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " I shall expect you to go." Mr. Allerton rose. " I 
 trust, in thinking the matter over, you will appre 
 ciate that I am more capable to judge what is best for 
 you than you are, with your limited experience and 
 the narrow views of life and duty not unnatural in 
 
 [141] 
 
GOLDEN FLEECE 
 
 youth." He left the room, severe and serene, master 
 of himself and of his household. 
 
 The Allertons were traditionally Chinese in their 
 beliefs in the sacredness of the duty of obedience from 
 children to parents, and the duty of despotic control 
 by parents over children. 
 
 Theirs was one of the old houses in Mount Vernon 
 Street a traditional New England home for a sub 
 stantial citizen. There was no ostentation about them 
 the carriage in which they drove forth was delib 
 erately ancient in style and in appointments, looked 
 modest even among the very modest or, if you choose, 
 " badly turned out," equipages of the Boston " aris 
 tocracy." Mr. Allerton's public expenditures on an 
 art gallery, in partial support of an orchestra and a 
 hospital, in subscriptions to colleges, lectures, char 
 ities were greater by thirty thousand a year than his 
 private expenditures. Cecilia had few clothes, and, 
 while they were of the very best, and were in good 
 taste and style, they modestly asserted that in the 
 Allerton conception of dress for a lady conspicuous- 
 ness for inconspicuousness was the prime requirement. 
 Mrs. Ridgie, who often complained that she " hated 
 to live in a town where the best people didn't wear 
 
CHAPTER NINE 
 
 their best clothes every day," called Cecilia a "dowd"; 
 but that was unjust, because Cecilia was most careful 
 in her dress, and adapted it admirably to her peculiar 
 charms. 
 
 If Honoria had not forewarned Frothingham he 
 would have been deceived by the modesty and fru 
 gality of the Allerton establishment. After New 
 York, it seemed to him most un-American for people 
 of great wealth to live thus obscurely. But, having 
 been pointed by Honoria, he soon discovered that Al 
 lerton was indeed enormously rich. And he also dis 
 covered that he was favourably inclined to a titled son- 
 in-law. But Cecilia 
 
 " There's some mystery about her," he reflected. 
 " She acts as if she were walking in her sleep. But if 
 I could get her, I'd do even better than if I'd taken a 
 wife from among those nervous New Yorkers. She's 
 meek and a stay-at-home. She'd not bother me a bit, 
 and she and Evelyn would hit it off like twins. She's 
 not exactly stupid, but she's something just as good. 
 It doesn't matter whether one's wife is stupid or ab 
 sent-minded the effect's the same." 
 
 But he walked round and round the fence between 
 her personality and the world in vain. He found no 
 
 [143] 
 
GOLDEN FLEECE 
 
 low place, no place where he could slip under, no knot 
 hole or crack even. They went down to Brookline to 
 gether he was more puzzled than ever by her atti 
 tude toward him that morning. She was less friendly, 
 but also less forbidding. She seemed to him to be 
 awaiting something he suspected what. He tried to 
 muster courage to put his destiny to the touch when a 
 chance naturally offered; but he could not her ex 
 pression was too strongly suggestive of a statue. 
 
 Instead, he said : " What do you think about 
 away off there wherever it is ? " 
 
 " Think? " She smiled peculiarly. " I don't think 
 I feel." 
 
 " Feel what? " 
 
 She looked mocking. " Ah that's my secret. You 
 would stay where I do if you could go there and it 
 made you as happy as it makes me." 
 
 " You're mysterious," he drawled. " I'm a block 
 head at riddles and all that." 
 
 But she did not assist him. 
 
 Mrs. Ridgie herself was waiting for them in a 
 two-seated trap with a pair of exceedingly restless 
 thoroughbreds. Halfway to the house they shied at 
 an automobile and started to run. She got them 
 
 [144] 
 
CHAPTER NINE 
 
 under control after a struggle, and glanced round at 
 Frothingham for approval he looked calm and seemed 
 unconscious that anything disturbing had happened. 
 " Ridgie told me not to take this pair out," she said. 
 " But I make it a rule never to obey an order from him. 
 In that way we get on beautifully. He loves to give 
 orders and I never object. I love to disobey orders 
 and he never objects." 
 
 The Ridgie Stauntons lived in what seemed to 
 Frothingham little more than an exalted farmhouse, 
 though it was regarded in that neighbourhood as a 
 sinful flaunting of luxury, the worst of Mrs. Ridgie's 
 many sins of ostentation and extravagance. These 
 were endured because she was married to a Staunton, 
 and because she was from New York, and therefore 
 could not be expected to know what was vulgar and 
 what well bred. But Frothingham was more com 
 fortable than he had been since the day before he left 
 Lake-in-the-Wood. Mrs. Ridgie would live in free- 
 and-easy fashion one could smoke through all the 
 house; there were drinks and plenty of good cigars 
 and cigarettes available at all times ; and the talk was 
 the unpretentious gossip and slang of fast sets every 
 where intelligent people intelligently frivolous. 
 
 [145] 
 
GOLDEN FLEECE 
 
 Frothingham thought Ridgie Staunton " a harm 
 less sort, a bit loud and noisy," but well-meaning, and 
 good enough except when he had his occasional 
 brief spasmodic fits of remembering his early 
 training, and feeling that his mode of life was 
 all wrong. He was, in his wife's opinion, a 
 perfect husband, except that he hung about so 
 much. 
 
 " What do your English women do with their hus 
 bands, Lord Frothingham? " she said. " It's a hor 
 rible nuisance, having a man a husband round all 
 day long with nothing to do. I try to drive Ridgie 
 out to work. But he's a lazy dog. He goes a few 
 steps and then comes slinking back. I'm opposed to 
 a leisure class of men." 
 
 " And you said only yesterday," complained 
 Ridgie, " that Englishmen make better lovers than 
 Americans because they have leisure and the sense of 
 leisure, while Americans are forever looking at watches 
 and clocks." 
 
 " Did I ? But that was yesterday," retorted his 
 wife. " Besides, I said lovers not husbands. Give 
 me an English lover, but a hard-working, stay-away- 
 from-home American husband." 
 
 [146] 
 
CHAPTER NINE 
 
 " Do you wonder that I watch a wife who talks like 
 that? " said Ridgie cheerfully. 
 
 Frothingham and Cecilia rode the next morning. 
 Getting away from the staid old house in Mount Ver- 
 non Street seemed to have revived and cheered her. 
 There was colour in her cheeks, life in her eyes, and she 
 showed by laughing and talking a great deal that she 
 was interested in the earth for a moment at least. 
 Ridgie had given Frothingham a difficult horse, but as 
 he rode well he succeeded in carrying on a reasonably 
 consecutive conversation with Cecilia. She asked him 
 many questions about country life in England, and 
 drew him on to tell her much of his own mode of living. 
 And he ended with, " Altogether, I'd be quite cheer 
 ful and happy if I were properly established." 
 
 Cecilia became instantly silent and cold and again 
 he had the feeling that she was expecting something 
 to happen. 
 
 " What the place needs," he went on boldly, " what 
 I need, is a woman such a woman as you." 
 
 His horse reared, leaped in the air, tried to bolt. 
 It was full a minute before he got it under control. 
 " Nasty brute," he said, resettling his eyeglass, and 
 turning his face toward her again. He thrilled with 
 
 [147] 
 
GOLDEN FLEECE 
 
 hope. " Is there a chance for me ? " he asked. " I 
 have not spoken to your father that isn't the Amer 
 ican way, is it? And I sha'n't trouble you with a lot 
 of of the usual sort of talk until I know whether 
 it's welcome. You're not the sort of girl a man ven 
 tures far with unless he's jolly sure he knows where 
 he's going." 
 
 " Thank you," she said simply. " I shall be frank 
 with you. My father wishes me to marry you. If his 
 will were not stronger than mine I shouldn't think of 
 it. It is only fair to tell you why." She was looking 
 at him tranquilly. " I loved a man loved him well 
 enough to have, where he was concerned, a stronger 
 will than my father. But he died. I love him still. 
 I shall always love him. When my father told me that 
 he wished me to marry you, I asked my lover and he 
 said that I ought to obey. He has been urging me 
 to marry except occasionally ever since he died." 
 
 Frothingham stared at her in utter amazement. 
 
 " Do you mind " he began, but again his horse 
 
 tried to throw him. When he got it under control he 
 saw that she was much amused apparently at him. 
 She rode up close beside him, laid her hand on his 
 horse's neck and said, " Please, Stanley, don't ! " in a 
 
 [148] 
 
CHAPTER NINE 
 
 curiously tender tone. The horse instantly became 
 quiet. 
 
 " You were saying? " she asked. 
 
 " Do you mind if I admit that Really, I'm 
 
 not sure that I heard you aright a few minutes 
 ago." 
 
 " You mean when I spoke of talking to Stanley 
 after he was dead? " 
 
 " Stanley " Frothingham regarded her quiz 
 zically. " Is this horse named after him? " 
 
 " No I don't know what the horse's name is. The 
 reason it was so restless was that Stanley was teasing 
 him to make him a little troublesome for you." 
 
 Frothingham paled and glanced round. 
 
 " The second night after he died," she went on, a 
 far-away look in her eyes, " he came to me in a dream. 
 He assured me that he was happy, and that I must be 
 so, too, and that he would always be with me, nearer, 
 in more perfect communion, than if he had remained 
 alive. It was just when Dr. Yarrow was beginning 
 his experiments to establish communication with 
 the other world. Stanley and I had been most inter 
 ested. And when he appeared to me after his death 
 he explained that he had been able, through the in- 
 
 [149] 
 
GOLDEN FLEECE 
 
 tensity of his love for me, to pierce the barrier and 
 bring his soul and my soul face to face." 
 
 Frothingham showed that he was profoundly 
 moved. " When I was a little chap," he said in a low 
 voice, " I ran bang into the ghost of an ancestor of 
 mine old Hoel de Beauvais. He has paced a hall in 
 the east wing of Beauvais House the night before the 
 head of the family dies, for hundreds of years. They 
 laughed me out of it, but, by gad, I knew I saw him 
 and my grandfather was thrown from his horse and 
 killed the next day. I pretend not to believe in that 
 sort of thing, but I do all we English do." 
 
 " Nothing could be more certain," said Cecilia, 
 radiant at this prompt acceptance of what she ex 
 pected him to try to laugh her out of. " I have told 
 no one I shouldn't have told you if it hadn't seemed 
 the only course I could honestly take." 
 
 " Can you see him now?" asked Frothingham in 
 an awe-stricken voice. 
 
 " No I see him only in dreams and sometimes 
 when I go to Mrs. Ramsay. But we talk together at 
 any time. You noticed how he stopped teasing the 
 horse? " 
 
 The horse was, indeed, perfectly quiet. Frothing- 
 
 [150] 
 
CHAPTER NINE 
 
 ham nodded. His habitual look of vacancy and satire 
 had given place to earnestness and intense interest. 
 " And does he wish you to marry ? " he asked. 
 
 "Yes he has said it, and he has written it in one 
 of the first letters he sent me through Mrs. Ramsay. 
 I've only asked him verbally about you, and he con 
 sents and approves. I'll take you to Mrs. Ramsay, 
 and we'll get his written permission." 
 
 " But why does he consent ? " asked Frothingham. 
 " Is there no no jealousy there? ' 
 
 " Jealousy ? Impossible ! Don't you see, he can 
 look into my soul he knows that I am his. And all 
 the interest he has in this gross mortal life of mine is 
 that it shall be honourable and that I shall do my duty 
 as a daughter and as a woman." 
 
 Frothingham said no more. He was overwhelmed 
 with a sense of the imminence of an unseen world 
 that world which had been made real to him by his 
 nurses, bred in the legends and superstitions of Eng 
 land, and by his similarly trained companions at school, 
 at the university, and ever since. It was a shock, but 
 nothing incredible to him, this revelation of a daily 
 and hourly commerce with that other world of which, 
 he was certain from his own childhood experience, 
 
 [151] 
 
GOLDEN FLEECE 
 
 everyone had glimpses now and then. From time to 
 time he looked at Cecilia, now returned to her wonted 
 expression of abstraction. She seemed the very per 
 son to have such an experience. He was filled with 
 awe of her ; he was fascinated by her ; he began to feel 
 the first faint, vague stirrings of jealousy which he 
 dared not express, even to himself, lest the spirit eyes 
 of Cecilia's lover should peer into his soul, and see, 
 and punish. 
 
A 1 dinner that night Willie Kennefick, who was 
 staying in the house, began to tell his experi 
 ences in New York he had just come from a 
 little visit there. " The woman I took in to dinner," 
 said he, " gave me a solar plexus while I was busy with 
 the oysters. She said to me, ' I went to see such a 
 wonderful man to-day. He told me the most aston 
 ishing things about my past and future, and he sold 
 me a little wax image that I'm going to burn for my 
 gout.' ' What ! ' said I. ' For my gout,' said she. ' I 
 have to burn it slowly, and when it's consumed my 
 gout will be gone. I got it so cheap ! Only twenty- 
 five dollars.' ' 
 
 " And what did you say, Willie? " asked Mrs. 
 Thayer. 
 
 " I said ' Cheap ? It was a shame to cheat the poor 
 devil in that fashion.' And she said, * Wasn't it a 
 bargain? He wanted a hundred, but I brought him 
 down.' " 
 
 [153] 
 
GOLDEN FLEECE 
 
 " You must have been keeping queer company in 
 New York," said Henrietta Gillett. 
 
 " Not at all. It was at Mrs. Baudeleigh's house, 
 and the woman well, her husband's one of the biggest 
 lawyers in New York. But, then, that's no worse 
 than the astrology some of us here have gone daft 
 over." 
 
 " Oh astrology that's a different matter," ob 
 jected Mrs. Thayer. " You evidently haven't looked 
 into it. That is a science not at all the same as 
 palmistry and spiritualism, and those frauds." 
 
 Cecilia smiled the amused, pitying smile of wis 
 dom in the presence of ludicrous ignorance and 
 looked at Frothingham. He returned her look 
 pleased to have a secret, and such an intimate secret, 
 in common with her. " But don't you think you're a 
 bit rash, Mrs. Thayer? ' : ' he drawled. " You cer 
 tainly believe in ghosts, now, don't you ? ' ; 
 
 Miss Gillett's handsome, high-bred face expressed 
 astonishment. " Do you? " she asked, before Mrs. 
 Thayer could answer him. 
 
 " We can't doubt it over on our side. We've too 
 much evidence of it. And I was listening to an old 
 chap from Cambridge your Cambridge very clever 
 
 [154] 
 
CHAPTER TEN 
 old fellow, 7 thought Yarrow, wasn't it? Yes, Yar 
 
 row." 
 
 " Yarrow ! " Miss Gillett's eyes flashed scorn. 
 " He's a disgrace to New England. We pride our 
 selves on having the culture of Emerson and the other 
 great men of our past. What would they think of us 
 if they could look in on us with our Yarrows and our 
 Gonga Sahds and our Mrs. Ramsays. All the sen 
 sible people in the country must be laughing at us. 
 Pardon me, Lord Frothingham I'm very indignant 
 at what I regard as superstitions and impostors. It's 
 only my view." 
 
 " Not at all, not at all," said Frothingham with an 
 uneasy glance at Cecilia's angry face. " I'm not one 
 of those who wish all to believe alike. What the devil 
 should we do if we hadn't each other's opinions to 
 laugh at? " 
 
 " You're such an ardent disciple," continued Miss 
 Gillett, " you ought to go to Yarrow's Mrs. Ramsay. 
 She'll put you in communication with spirits, as many 
 as you like, or rather as many as you care to pay for. 
 I think she gets ten a ghost twenty for letters." 
 
 The discussion was raging hotly round the table, 
 all but two of the men, and all but four of the women 
 
 [155] 
 
GOLDEN FLEECE 
 
 deriding astrology, palmistry, Buddhism, spiritual 
 ism; and the respective devotees of these cults derid 
 ing each the others. " Cut it out," said Mrs. Ridgie 
 finally. " We'll have * rough house ' here the first 
 thing you know." 
 
 Everyone laughed. They liked slang, and Mrs. 
 Ridgie's was the boldest and quaintest. When the 
 men and women were separated, " metaphysics " was 
 again attempted by both. But the men who did not 
 believe summarily laughed it down in the smoking 
 room. " Those fads are all well enough for the women," 
 said Kennefick. " They've got to do something to pass 
 the time, and they won't do anything serious, or, if 
 they do, they make a joke of it. But our men, Lord 
 Frothingham " he was addressing himself to the 
 Earl, whose spiritualistic views he had not heard and 
 did not suspect " are too busy for such nonsense." 
 
 " That's a libel on the woman," said Thayer his 
 fad was a militant socialism that had a kindly eye for 
 a red flag. " It's only women of the so-called fash 
 ionable class who go in for such silliness. The great 
 mass of American women have something better to 
 do." 
 
 " That's a libel on the women of the better class," 
 
 [156] 
 
CHAPTER TEN 
 
 retorted Kennefick. " Precious few of them are so 
 silly." 
 
 " If it isn't that it's something else equally idle," 
 said Thayer. Except Frothingham he was the best- 
 dressed man in the room. " I've no time for idlers." 
 
 " Why don't you give your money away and 
 shoulder a pick? " asked Kennefick teasingly. 
 
 " I'm not fit even to wield a pick " Thayer was one 
 of the ablest lawyers in Massachusetts " and I'd give 
 my money away if I could without doing more harm 
 than good. There are two kinds of parasites the 
 plutocrats and the paupers. I'm ' agin ' 'em both. 
 And, as for spiritualism, I will admit that I don't 
 think we know enough about mind or the relations of 
 mind and matter to dogmatise as you fellows have been 
 doing." 
 
 Kennefick winked at Frothingham as if saying: 
 " Another proof that Thayer's a crank." 
 
 When Frothingham was beside Cecilia in the draw 
 ing room she said : " Would you like to go to Mrs. 
 Ramsay ? " 
 
 " Yes will you take me? " he replied. 
 
 " I'll write to-night making an appointment for 
 Wednesday." 
 
 [157] 
 
GOLDEN FLEECE 
 
 He was liking her immensely now, and, while he be 
 lieved not nearly so vividly as at first in her con 
 nections with the other world, he felt growing con 
 fidence that they would rapidly fade before reawaken 
 ing interest in this world. Meanwhile, he reasoned, 
 his cue was to ingratiate himself by sympathising with 
 her and encouraging her to closer and closer confi 
 dence. " It's only a step from best friend to lover," 
 he said to himself. And he made admirable use of 
 the two days between her tentative acceptance of him 
 and their visit to Mrs. Ramsay. He was justly proud 
 of his manner toward her a little of the brother, a 
 great deal of the best friend, the tenderness and sym 
 pathy of the lover, yet nothing that could alarm her. 
 
 Mrs. Ramsay lived in an old brick cottage in a 
 quiet street near Louisburg Square. In the two days 
 Frothingham had become somewhat better acquainted 
 with Henrietta Gillett and had got a strong respect 
 for her intelligence. As he and Cecilia entered the 
 dark little parlour he remembered what Henrietta had 
 said about Mrs. Ramsay, and was on guard. The first 
 impression he received was of a perfume, ujfmistak- 
 ably of the heaviest, most suspicious Oriental kind. 
 
 " Gad ! " he said to himself, " that scent don't sug- 
 
 [158] 
 
CHAPTER TEN 
 
 gest spirits. It smells tremendously of the world, the 
 flesh, and the devil, especially the devil.'* 
 
 As his eyes became accustomed to the faint light he 
 discovered the radiating centre of this odour a small 
 blackish woman of forty or thereabouts, with keen 
 shifty black eyes and a long face as hard and flesh- 
 less from the cheekbones down as from the cheekbones 
 up. The mouth was wide and cold and cruel. She 
 was dressed in a loose black woollen wrapper, tight at 
 the wrists, and her scanty black hair was in a careless 
 oily coil low on the back of her head. Her eyelids 
 lifted languidly and she gave Cecilia her hand a 
 pretty hand, slender and sensitive. 
 
 " Good-morning, my dear," she said. " This is the 
 Earl of Frothingham, is it not ? " 
 
 At this both Cecilia and Frothingham started 
 Cecilia because it was another and impressive evidence 
 of Mrs. Ramsay's power; Frothingham because he 
 knew that voice so well. His knees weakened and he 
 looked at Mrs. Ramsay again. 
 
 But she was not looking at him. She was saying to 
 Cecilia : " Dr. Yarrow was here for two hours he 
 left not twenty minutes ago. I am so exhausted ! " 
 
 " Perhaps we would better come to-morrow," said 
 
 [159] 
 
GOLDEN FLEECE 
 
 Cecilia, appeal, apology, and disappointment in her 
 voice. 
 
 " No no," replied Mrs. Ramsay wearily. " Dr. 
 Yarrow tells me he has never known me to be so 
 thoroughly under control as to-day. And" she 
 smiled faintly at Cecilia " you know I would do any 
 thing for you" 
 
 " You "have done everything for me," said Cecilia, 
 and her tone of humble, even deferential, gratitude 
 filled Frothingham with pity and disgust. He was 
 staring stolidly at Mrs. Ramsay, but if the room had 
 been lighter his changed colour and white lips might 
 have been noted. Cecilia seated herself, and Froth 
 ingham gladly sat also, where he could see Mrs. Ram 
 say's face without her seeing him unless she turned her 
 head uncomfortably. 
 
 She rang a small silver bell on the table at her elbow. 
 A girl answered. " The light, please," said Mrs. 
 Ramsay. 
 
 The girl went away and returned in a moment with 
 a lamp whose strong flame was completely and curi 
 ously shielded by a metal sphere except at one point 
 underneath. When it was set upon the table it threw 
 a powerful light in a flood upon a part of the surface 
 
 [160] 
 
CHAPTER TEN 
 
 of the table about six inches in diameter. The girl 
 went to the windows and drew the heavy curtains across 
 them. It was now impossible to see anything in the 
 room except that small disc of intense light. In it 
 presently appeared the slender, sensitive right hand of 
 Mrs. Ramsay it seemed to end at the wrist in noth 
 ingness. It laid upon the brightness a pad of white 
 scribbling paper and a thick pencil with the heavy 
 lead slightly rounded at the end; then it vanished. 
 There was a long silence Frothingham was sure he 
 could hear Cecilia's faint breathing. His own breath 
 hardly came at all and his heart was beating crazily. 
 He stared at those inanimate objects in the circle of 
 dazzling light until his brain whirled. 
 
 A long sigh, apparently from Mrs. Ramsay, as if 
 she were sinking into a deathlike sleep ; a quick catch 
 ing of the breath from the direction of Cecilia. He 
 heard her move her chair to the light and then in it 
 appeared her hand long and narrow, looking waxen 
 white, its nails, beautifully rounded, the most delicate 
 blush of pink. It took the pencil and moved across 
 the paper. Frothingham bent forward she had 
 written large, and he could easily read: 
 
 Dearest! 
 
 [161] 
 
GOLDEN FLEECE 
 
 Her hand disappeared, and again there was in that 
 unearthly light, only the pad, the pencil, and the 
 heart-call into the infinite " Dearest ! " 
 
 A long pause, then the weird, severed hand Froth- 
 ingham could not associate it with Mrs. Ramsay 
 crawled haltingly into the light, hovered over the pen 
 cil, took it, began to make its blunt point scrawl along 
 the paper a loose, shaky handwriting. With the 
 hair on the back of his head trembling to rise, Froth- 
 ingham read: 
 
 My wife I am glad you have come, though you bring another 
 with you to profane our holy secret. 
 
 In the darkness a sharp exclamation from Cecilia, 
 then a sound like a sob. The hand ceased to write, 
 dropped the pencil, vanished instantly. In the light 
 appeared Cecilia's hand, trembling, its veins standing 
 up, blue and pulsing Frothingham was amazed that 
 a hand by itself could express so much ; it was as per 
 fect a mirror of her feelings as her face would have 
 been. She wrote eagerly : 
 
 But, dearest, you told me only this morning that he might, 
 should, see all. 
 
 Her hand lifted the sheet, now filled with writing, 
 laid it beside the pad, then disappeared. Again there 
 
 [162] 
 
CHAPTER TEN 
 
 was a long silence, and again the mysterious hand 
 crawled out of the darkness, loosely held the pencil, 
 and wrote slowly, staggeringly, faintly: 
 
 No, I have not spoken to you, seen you, since he came into 
 your life It has been hard for me to push my way through 
 to-day There is a barrier between PS You have been deceived 
 Can it be that you but no, I trust my wife 
 
 The hand paused. " Oh ! oh ! " sobbed Cecilia. 
 The hand was moving again: 
 
 My friends here tell me that you are going away across the sea 
 with an English fortune hunter with him. You have been cruel 
 enough to bring him here to our bridal chamber Oh, Cecilia 
 
 The end of the sheet had been reached, but the hand 
 wrote on for a few seconds, making vague markings in 
 space, then vanished, dropping the pencil with a noise 
 that in the strained silence sounded like a crash and 
 made both Cecilia and Frothingham leap in their 
 chairs. After a moment Cecilia's trembling, eager, 
 pathetic hands lifted off the filled sheet and withdrew. 
 But the hand did not return. After a long wait her 
 right hand it seemed bloodless now appeared once 
 more upon the paper and wrote : 
 
 I have been deceived. I love only you. I thought I was obey 
 ing you. Speak to me, dearest. You see into my heart. Speak 
 to me. Do not leave me alone. 
 
 [163] 
 
GOLDEN FLEECE 
 
 Her hand laid the sheet upon the other filled sheets 
 and withdrew from that neutral ground of dazzling 
 light between the two great mystery lands. Imme 
 diately the other hand darted into the light, caught 
 the pencil, and scrawled in great, tottering letters : 
 
 Yes, yes but I cannot until he has gone far from you Then 
 come again Good-b 
 
 The hand vanished and there was a moan from the 
 darkness that enveloped the medium a moan that 
 ended in a suppressed shriek. Frothingham saw 
 Cecilia's hands hastily snatch the written sheets from 
 under the light. Then he heard a voice in his ear 
 he hardly knew it as hers : " Come come quickly ! " 
 
 He rose, and with his hand touching her arm fol 
 lowed her. The door opened the dim hallway 
 seemed brightly lighted, so great was the contrast. 
 The maid was seated there. She at once rose, entered 
 the medium's room, and closed the door behind her. 
 Cecilia and Frothingham went into the quiet little 
 street the enormous sunshine, the white snow over 
 everything, in the distance the rumble of the city. 
 He gave a huge sigh of relief, and wiped the sweat 
 from his face his very hair was wet and his collar 
 
 was wilted. He was sickly pale. 
 
 [164] 
 

 '''Forgive me it was all my fault yet not mine- 
 good-bye " 
 
CHAPTER TEN 
 
 " She always wishes to be left that way," said Ce 
 cilia, as if she did not know what she was saying. 
 
 They walked to the corner together. " I am not 
 well," she said. He ventured to look at her ; she was 
 wan and old, and her eyes were deep circled in blue- 
 black and she was blue-black at the corners of her 
 mouth, at the edges of her nostrils. " I must go 
 home they will telephone Mrs. Ridgie. Don't say 
 where I was taken ill. Forgive me it was all my 
 
 fault yet not mine good-bye " She did not 
 
 put out her hand to him, but stood off from him with 
 fear and anguish in her eyes. 
 
 " The woman's a fraud a " he began. 
 
 She turned upon him with a fury of which he would 
 not have believed her capable. " Go ! go ! " she ex 
 claimed, as if she were driving away a dog. 
 " Already you may have lost me my love. Go ! " 
 
 He shrank from her. She walked rapidly away, 
 and he saw her hail a cab, enter it, saw the cab drive 
 away. With his head down he went in the opposite 
 direction. " I think I must be mad," he muttered. 
 He thrust his hands deep into the outside pockets of 
 his ulster. He drew out his right hand in it was her 
 purse, which she had given him to carry because it did 
 
 [165] 
 
GOLDEN FLEECE 
 
 not fit comfortably into her muff. " No," he said, 
 " she was with me." 
 
 He put the purse in the pocket and strode back 
 the way he had come. He turned into the quiet little 
 street, went to Mrs. Ramsay's door, lifted and 
 dropped the knocker several times. The maid opened 
 the door a few inches and showed a frowning 
 face. 
 
 Frothingham widened the space by thrusting him 
 self into it. " Tell Mrs. Ramsay that Lord Froth 
 ingham wishes to speak to her," he said in a tone that 
 made her servant his servant. 
 
 She went into the ghost-chamber and soon reap 
 peared. " Mrs. Ramsay is too exhausted to see any 
 one to-day." 
 
 " Bah ! " exclaimed Frothingham, and stalked past 
 the maid and into the ghost-chamber. 
 
 The curtains were back and the slats of the shutters 
 were open. Mrs. Ramsay, in her great chair by the 
 table, was using a bottle of salts. She did not look in 
 Frothingham's direction as he closed the door sharply 
 behind him. 
 
 He went to her and scowled down at her. " What 
 the devil did you do that for, Lillian ? ' ! 
 
 [166] 
 
CHAPTER TEN 
 
 Mrs. Ramsay did not change expression and did not 
 answer. 
 
 "No one ever treated you decenter than I did. 
 You " 
 
 " No names, please, Slobsy," said Mrs. Ramsay, 
 shaking her bottle and sniffing it again. 
 
 At " Slobsy " he shivered he was not a lunatic on 
 the subject of his dignity, but he did not fancy this 
 nickname of his Oxford days, thus inopportunely 
 flung at him. He felt that at one stroke she had cut 
 the ground from under his feet. 
 
 " I was sorry to do it," she continued. " But I 
 couldn't have you poaching on my preserves, could I 
 now, Slobsy ? It cut me to do it " she looked at him 
 with friendly sympathy " but you could better 
 afford to lose her than I could. You forgive me, 
 don't you? You always were sensible." 
 
 " I'll expose you," he said he was once more im 
 perturbable, and was looking at her calmly through 
 his eyeglass and was speaking in his faintly satirical 
 drawl. 
 
 " Expose what ? " asked Mrs. Ramsay, sniffing at 
 her salts. 
 
 He reflected. Suppose he denounced her, put him- 
 
 [ 167 ] 
 
GOLDEN FLEECE 
 
 self in a position where he could, probably would, be 
 forced to tell all he knew about her, roused her anger 
 and her vindictiveness whom would he expose? 
 Clearly, no one but himself to Cecilia, or Cecilia to the 
 public. He knew nothing about Mrs. Ramsay that 
 would prove her a fraud in fifteen years she might 
 have become the properest person in the world, might 
 have developed into a medium. He turned and left 
 the room and the house. Halfway to the corner he 
 paused ; a faint, dreary smile drifted over his face. 
 
 " It's really a new sensation to settle a bill," he 
 said to himself. " An outlawed bill, too. What luck 
 just my rotten luck ! " 
 
 [168] 
 
XI 
 
 A Mrs. Ridgie's they guessed that Froth- 
 ingham had proposed to Cecilia and that she 
 had been unnerved by the shock to her wid 
 owed heart. He stayed on until the following Mon 
 day, neither amused nor amusing, then returned to 
 Mrs. Staunton's for two days. He found her intensely 
 curious as to the trouble between Cecilia and him she 
 brought up the subject again and again, and with 
 expert ingenuity at prying tried to trap him into 
 telling her; she all but asked him point-blank. But 
 he looked vague or vacant, pretended not to under 
 stand what she wanted, expressed lively interest in 
 Cecilia's progress toward health, professed keen 
 regret that he must leave before she would be well 
 enough to receive him. 
 
 As he was about to go Mrs. Staunton became des 
 perate. " Allerton is a stern man," she said, with an 
 air that forbade the idea that mere vulgar curiosity 
 was moving her. " He has the notion that Cecilia 
 
 [169] 
 
GOLDEN FLEECE 
 
 was not polite to you you know, she gives way to 
 strange moods. And he is so irritated against her 
 that he is treating her harshly." 
 
 Frothingham looked astonished. " Really ! " he 
 said. " How extraordinary. I can't conceive how he 
 happened to wander off into that. Nothing could be 
 farther from the truth." 
 
 " I confess," Mrs. Staunton went on, " I'm much 
 disappointed. I've taken a fancy to you. I had 
 rather hoped that you and Cecilia would like each 
 other you understand." 
 
 Frothingham reflected. It was possible, yes, prob 
 able, that Cecilia's father could drive her into marry 
 ing him, would do it if he should hint to Mrs. Staunton 
 that he did fancy Cecilia and was " horribly cut up " 
 because she didn't fancy him. " What the devil do 
 her feelings matter to me ? " he demanded of himself. 
 " A month after we were married she'd forget all this 
 ghost nonsense and would be thanking me for pulling 
 her out of it." 
 
 " And," Mrs. Staunton was saying, " I know her 
 father would have liked it as well as I." 
 
 But Frothingham didn't follow his impulse and her 
 unconscious leading. " What am I thinking of? " 
 
 [170] 
 
CHAPTER ELEVEN 
 
 he said to himself in the sharp struggle that was going 
 on behind his impassive exterior. " I'm not that sort 
 of blackguard at least, not yet." Then he drawled 
 his answer to Mrs. Staunton: " I'm tremendously flat 
 tered, but really, I fear the young lady and I would 
 never hit it off. I've no great fancy for marrying 
 never had. I've always thought it a poor business 
 one of the sort of things that are good for the women 
 and children, you know, but not for the men." 
 
 Mrs. Staunton looked mild and humourous disap 
 proval. " What is the world coming to ? A man asked 
 me the other day why all the nice women were mar 
 ried and all the nice men single. I hadn't thought of 
 it until he spoke. But I must say it's true of my 
 acquaintances." 
 
 " I hope you'll let Mr. Allerton know he's wrong," 
 said Frothingham. " I hate it that the poor girl's 
 had the screws put on her on my account." 
 
 " Certainly I'll tell him. But I'm sorry it's not to 
 be as we hoped." She was studying him with a puz 
 zled expression. She had heard from what she 
 regarded as a thoroughly trustworthy source that he 
 had come over especially to get him a rich wife. If 
 that wasn't his object, why was he wandering about 
 
 [171] 
 
GOLDEN FLEECE 
 
 here? Titled foreigners didn't come to America ex 
 cept for the one thing of interest to them which 
 America has money. She could not understand his 
 unbusiness-like conduct. 
 
 He couldn't understand it himself. " I always was 
 an ass," he thought. " Here am I, sinking straight 
 to the bottom or, what's worse, the bottomless. Yet 
 I'm squeamish about the kind of line that pulls me 
 ashore. Yes I'm an ass. Even Lillian, well as I 
 knew her at Oxford, took me in a bit with her trumpery 
 tricks to make a living. She completely foozled me 
 
 that is " Did she " foozle " him? He couldn't 
 
 banish the doubt. And there was the incident of the 
 horse Lillian had nothing to do with that, yet it 
 fitted in with her professions as to the spirit world. 
 But hadn't she as good as owned up by apologising 
 for breaking it off between him and Cecilia? Per 
 haps she hadn't meant that; perhaps she had meant 
 she was sorry to be the medium for such a letter. 
 " There was a lot of truth in that letter. And there 
 must be something in witches and ghosts and all that, 
 or the whole world wouldn't believe in 'em. But what 
 ghastly luck that Lillian should turn up after fifteen 
 years no, seventeen, by Jove! Gad, how she has 
 
 [172] 
 
CHAPTER ELEVEN 
 
 gone off since she was bar-maid at the Golden Cross 
 and the prettiest girl that walked the High Street." 
 
 He paused in New York a few hours, long enough 
 to get a disagreeable mail from the other side a 
 dismal letter from old Bagley, a suspiciously cheerful 
 note from Evelyn, a few lines from Surrey with a post 
 script about Gwen " I've shipped her off to Mentone. 
 She's a bit seedy this winter, poor girl." Frothing- 
 ham quarrelled at Hutt, drank himself into a state of 
 glassy-eyed gloom and took the three-o'clock express 
 for Washington. As he sat in the smoking car a man 
 dropped into the next chair with a " How d'ye do, 
 Frothingham? " Frothingham's features slowly col 
 lected into an expression of recognition, of restrained 
 pleasure. " Glad to see you, Wallingford. Going 
 to Washington ? 5: 
 
 " Yes I'm in Congress, you know." 
 
 " No, I didn't know." And it struck him as uncom 
 monly modest in Wallingford never to have spoken of 
 so distinguished an honour. 
 
 " My father put me in last year." 
 
 " Oh, you've a seat in your family." Frothing 
 ham nodded under standingly. " That's very nice. 
 They've almost abolished that sort of luxury with us. 
 
 [173] 
 
GOLDEN FLEECE 
 
 Nowadays, to get into Parliament a fellow has to put 
 up a good many thousand pounds. Even then he 
 must take his chances of winning a lot of noisy brutes. 
 They often shout for him and vote for the other 
 fellow." 
 
 Wallingford's face had flushed when Frothingham 
 said " a seat in your family," and the flush had deep 
 ened as he went on. " You haven't got it quite 
 straight, Frothingham about us, I mean. No one 
 can have a Congressional seat in his family in America. 
 My father has some influence with the party in New 
 York City. He always puts up a lot of money for 
 campaigns. And they give him the chance to name a 
 Congressman if he's willing to pay for it. That's 
 between us, you understand. It's a bad system. But 
 it applies only to a few districts in New York and 
 perhaps one or two other cities." 
 
 " It sounds like our system," said Frothingham. 
 " A devilish good system, I call it. If it weren't for 
 that the lower classes would be chucking us all out 
 and putting their own kind in." 
 
 " Well, we think it bad. I feel something like a 
 fellow who knows he wouldn't have won the race if he 
 
 hadn't bribed the other fellow's jockey." 
 
 [174] 
 
CHAPTER ELEVEN 
 
 " That's your queer American way of looking at 
 things. You are always pretending that birth and 
 rank and wealth aren't entitled to consideration. But 
 that's all on the surface all ' bluff,' as you say. 
 They get just as much consideration here as among 
 
 us." 
 
 " You're judging the whole country by the people 
 in one small class and not by any means all of 
 them." 
 
 " Human nature is human nature," replied Froth- 
 ingham, with a cynical gleam in his eyeglass. 
 
 " If you go out West " 
 
 " I'll find what I've found in the East, no doubt 
 perhaps in a little different form. I'm visiting West 
 ern people at Washington after I've stopped at the 
 Embassy a few days some people I'm meeting 
 through an American acquaintance of ours in Eng 
 land Charles Sidney." 
 
 " Sidney ! " Wallingf ord laughed. " He's my 
 second cousin. Ain't he a shouting cad? " 
 
 " Oh, I think he's a well-meaning chap most 
 obliging." 
 
 " I should say so to anybody he crawls before. 
 And who are these Westerners he's sending you to? " 
 
 [175] 
 
GOLDEN FLEECE 
 
 " The Ballantynes. I think Mr. Ballantyne's a 
 Senator, is he not? " 
 
 Wallingford laughed again. " That's one on me," 
 he said. " Yes, they're from the West. But for 
 everything that isn't American they lay it over any 
 body you've seen in New York. Ballantyne! I 
 sha'n't say any more. It's of no use to tell you you're 
 going round and round in a circle that's in America 
 but not really of it." 
 
 " Do you know the Ballantynes? " 
 
 " I've met Mrs. Ballantyne and the daughter 
 that's married to a Spaniard the Duke of Almansa. 
 They were at Monte Carlo three years ago when I was 
 there. A handsome woman amusing, too. She 
 spent most of her time in the gambling rooms used 
 to come in always dressed in something new and loud 
 and what tremendous hats she did wear! She'd 
 throw on the table a big gold purse blazing with dia 
 monds. Then she'd seat herself and open the purse, 
 and it would be stuffed with thousand-franc notes. 
 She'd plunge like a Russian. Every once in a while 
 she'd go out on the balcony and walk up and down 
 smoking a cigarette. She forbade her husband the 
 Casino unless she was with him; even then he wasn't 
 
 [176] 
 
CHAPTER ELEVEN 
 
 allowed to stake a single louis. He'd slip away and 
 play in one of those more private rooms upstairs." 
 
 Frothingham smiled reminiscently. 
 
 " You know, the play's higher there," continued 
 Wallingford. " But the crowd of spectators was too 
 small and indifferent for Her Grace of Almansa. 
 When she found out what he was up to she made a 
 scene right before everybody ' How dare you squan 
 der my money? ' she said, " and she led him off like a 
 spaniel on its way to a whipping." 
 
 " Charming person," said Frothingham. " Must 
 have been amusing." 
 
 " Indeed she was. They'd talk of her all day with 
 out growing tired and always a new freak. You'll 
 be amused by her." 
 
 "Ah she's here?" 
 
 " Yes left the Duke two years ago paid him 
 off and came home to her father. She's quite quiet 
 now, they say educating her children." 
 
 Frothingham's three days at the British Embassy 
 were to him days upon an oasis in the desert. It was 
 literally as well as legally part of the British domain 
 Britain indeed, as soon as the outside door were passed. 
 The servants at most of the houses at which he had 
 
 [177] 
 
GOLDEN FLEECE 
 
 been entertained were direct and recent importations 
 from England, yet they had already lost an essential 
 something even his faithful Hutt was not the docile, 
 humble creature he had been. But here in the Em 
 bassy the servants, like the attaches, like the Ambas 
 sador's family, like the Ambassador himself, were as 
 English in look, in manner, in thought, as if they had 
 never been off the island. The very furniture and the 
 arrangement of it, the way the beds were made and the 
 towels were hung in the bathrooms, represented the 
 English people as thoroughly as did the Ambas 
 sador. 
 
 From this miniature Britain Frothingham on the 
 third day was transferred to the international chaos 
 beneath the turrets and battlements of the Ballantyne 
 castle. When the house was finished, twelve years 
 before Frothingham saw it, the various suites were 
 furnished each on a definite scheme French or Eng 
 lish or Italian of different periods, classical, Oriental, 
 Colonial American. But the Ballantynes had the true 
 American weariness of things that are completed. 
 They were not long interested in their house after it 
 was done. They felt like strangers in it, lived in it 
 
 only for the sake of show, were positively uncomf ort- 
 
 [178] 
 
CHAPTER ELEVEN 
 
 able. More through carelessness and indifference 
 than through ignorance, the movable objects in the 
 suites had become changed about a gradual process, 
 imperceptible to the inhabitants. There were now 
 specimens of every style and every period in each 
 suite; and Frothingham, who knew about interiors, 
 seeing this interior for the first time, thought it the 
 work of an eccentric verging on lunacy. 
 
 " Awful, isn't it ? " said Madame Almansa, as she 
 was called. She had noted Frothingham's glance 
 roaming the concourse of nations and periods that 
 thronged the walls and floor space of the vast parlour 
 the Ballantynes used the American term instead of 
 the British " drawing room." 
 
 Frothingham looked at her inquiringly. 
 " What? " he said, pretending not to understand. 
 
 " Do you wonder I refuse to live here? " she went 
 on, as if he had not spoken. " There's some excuse 
 for the great houses on the other side. At least the 
 present tenants didn't build them and can put the 
 responsibility upon their ignorant semi-barbaric 
 ancestors." 
 
 " That has struck me as a bit queer," replied Froth 
 ingham. " Over on our side we're cursing our ances- 
 
 [179] 
 
GOLDEN FLEECE 
 
 tors for having burdened us with huge masses of brick 
 and stone beastly uncomfortable, aren't they? " 
 
 " Worse unhealthful," she answered. " And as 
 dwelling places for human beings, ridiculous." 
 
 " Yes and it takes an army to keep 'em clean, and 
 then it isn't half done. And it does cost such a lot to 
 keep 'em up. And there's no way of heating them. 
 We don't build 'em any more except new people that 
 must show off." 
 
 " That's the trouble here," said Madame Almansa. 
 " The new people who know nothing of the art of 
 living build palaces as soon as ever they can afford it. 
 It's supposed to be the badge of superiority. Instead, 
 it's the badge of ignorance and vulgarity. I refuse 
 to permit my children to live in the midst of such non 
 sense. You must come to see us, Lord Frothingham, 
 in our little house just through this square." 
 
 Her sister, Isabella, who called herself Ysobel 
 because she fancied it more aristocratic, laughed 
 queerly almost a sneer, though good-natured. And 
 when Frothingham went away to her father's sitting 
 room, she laughed again. " It's all very well for you, 
 Susanna " 
 
 " Susan," interrupted Madame Almansa. 
 
 [180] 
 
CHAPTER ELEVEN 
 
 " Well, Susan, then though I hate to pronounce 
 such a common word in addressing anyone above the 
 rank of servant. It's all very well for you to talk in 
 that fashion. You've established yourself. You can 
 afford to affect simplicity, and to insist on being 
 called Susan, and on dropping your title, and on living 
 in a plain little house, and on bringing up your chil 
 dren as if they were tradesmen's sons instead of the 
 sons of one of the proudest nobles in " 
 
 " You know Almansa," interrupted * Susan.' 
 " How can you speak of him as proud or a 
 noble?" 
 
 " He is a weazened, oily creature," admitted Ysobel, 
 delighted to make her sister wince by agreeing with 
 her and " going her one better." " And I jumped 
 for joy when you shook him, because I shouldn't have 
 to let him kiss me any more. But, all the same, he's a 
 great noble. And you know perfectly well, Madame 
 Almansa, that if you had it to do all over again you'd 
 marry him yes, if he were ten times worse " 
 
 " Don't, Bella please ! " exclaimed " Susan " in a 
 large, tragic way. " Mon Dieu ! " She clasped her 
 hands and in heroic agitation swept magnificently up 
 and down the small, clear space. " When I think of 
 
 [181] 
 
GOLDEN FLEECE 
 
 the heritage of my boys my Emilio and my Al 
 fonso " 
 
 " My Prince Rio Blanco and my Marquis Calamar," 
 mocked Ysobel. " Cut it out, Sue. I loathe cant ! " 
 
 " Instead of filling your head with these false 
 notions of nobility," said " Sue," sarcastically, " you 
 would better look to your English, at least. But the 
 vulgar speech you and your girl friends use nowadays 
 is in keeping with your vulgar ideas of aristocracy." 
 
 " Yes, Madame la Duchesse," said Ysobel, her good 
 nature unruffled. " And when I've married a title 
 and then shaken the man I'll talk in the same top-lofty 
 way that you do." 
 
 Madame Almansa raised and lowered her superb 
 shoulders and changed the subject to dress she 
 affected an extreme of simplicity, and that required a 
 great deal more time and thought than her former 
 easily gratified craze for the startling. Presently 
 her father came with Frothingham. " You're going 
 to Senator Pope's to dinner, aren't you ? " he said 
 absently. Frothingham thought he looked like the 
 pictures of " Brother Jonathan," except that his white 
 chin whiskers were rooted in a somewhat larger chin 
 space. 
 
 [182] 
 
CHAPTER ELEVEN 
 
 " Not I," replied Madame Almansa. " You know, 
 father, I'm to stay here and do the honours at your 
 dinner." 
 
 " Yes, yes, Susie I remember." Senator Ballan- 
 tyne seemed pleased, but uneasy. " But you must be 
 careful very careful. Your grand airs will frighten 
 
 'em." 
 
 Ysobel laughed. " Mamma and I are going to 
 Mrs. Pope," she said, " and Lord Frothingham, too. 
 And then we all go to the White House dance after 
 ward." 
 
 " No, the White House dance is to-morrow night," 
 said Madame Almansa. " I am going." 
 
 " Well, well no matter," interposed Senator Bal- 
 lantyne. " All I want is to be sure that you get out of 
 the way before my constituents come. Your mother 
 ought to be ashamed of herself to desert me. But 
 I suppose they won't mind it so long as Sue is 
 here." 
 
 " What time's your dinner, pa? " asked Ysobel. 
 
 " Half-past six," replied the Senator, and he 
 turned to Frothingham : " At home they have dinner 
 no, they call it supper at five o'clock." 
 
 " That's 'way, 'way out West, Lord Frothingham," 
 
 [183] 
 
GOLDEN FLEECE 
 
 explained Ysobel, " where papa and mamma come 
 from." 
 
 " And you, too, young lady," said her father teas- 
 ingly. " You were born there." 
 
 " Yes, but I was caught young and taken to 
 France," retorted Ysobel. " I spoke French before I 
 spoke English." 
 
 Senator Ballantyne frowned, became abstracted, was 
 presently sighing. His eldest daughter heard it and 
 gave a theatrical sigh of sympathy. Ballantyne 
 seemed not to hear, but something had irritated him, 
 for he frowned heavily. 
 
 Mrs. Ballantyne came in from her drive. She was 
 a fine-looking woman, had all the outward appearance 
 of the grande dame, and acted the part so well that 
 not even herself had caught her in a slip for many 
 years a notable triumph in the art of pose when it is 
 considered that she was a country-school teacher until 
 she was twenty-four and had never seen a city or been 
 east of the Alleghenies until she was past thirty. 
 Frothingham helped her relieve herself of a great 
 sable-lined cloak which he handed to a servant. The 
 servant bent double in a bow Mrs. Ballantyne paid 
 
 well for obsequiousness. " When do those people of 
 
 [184] 
 
CHAPTER ELEVEN 
 
 yours begin to come, Samuel? " she asked, framing 
 her sentence and her manner to impress Frothing- 
 ham. 
 
 Ballantyne looked annoyed, and, with a furtive 
 glance at him, said : " Lord Frothingham will carry 
 away a strange notion of democratic institutions as 
 represented by Senators, mother." 
 
 Mrs. Ballantyne permitted him to call her mother 
 because it was the only word of address that did not 
 rasp her aristocratic nature. Her name was Jane 
 that she could not endure even before the days of her 
 grandeur. She had made him call her Mrs. Ballan 
 tyne before people until she discovered that it was 
 " shocking bad form." She decided upon mother 
 because the old Austrian Ambassador, whose title was 
 of the oldest and whose blood was of the thin and 
 pale bluest, said to her one day, " I like your American 
 fashion of husbands and wives calling each other 
 mother and father. It has a grand old patriarchal 
 ring. My wife and I have adopted it." 
 
 " You must get out of the way by six o'clock," 
 continued Ballantyne, addressing himself to 
 " mother." " Several of them said they'd come round 
 early for half an hour's chat before supper." 
 
 [185] 
 
GOLDEN FLEECE 
 
 " I'm sorry we're to be driven out," said Frothing- 
 ham. " I fancy I'd like to see your constituents." 
 
 " Oh, no, you wouldn't, Lord Frothingham," Mrs. 
 Ballantyne answered him for his benefit she was 
 " laying it on with a trowel," as Ysobel would have 
 said. " They're but you know how it is in politics. 
 I wish Samuel would leave public life." 
 
 " What ! " exclaimed Ballantyne, in mock horror. 
 " And have all our poor relations that I've got nicely 
 placed at the public crib bounced in a body, and come 
 grunting and squealing to me to be supported ! One 
 of the objects in getting public office in this country, 
 Lord Frothingham, is to relieve one's self of the sup 
 port of one's poor relations and friends. The late 
 President Arthur said to me when he was at the White 
 House : ' The degradation of it ! That I should 
 have to lower myself for six hours every day to keep 
 ing an employment agency ! ' 
 
 " But we can't dress and drive round the streets 
 from six o'clock until eight," said Ysobel. 
 
 " They'll be in the reception-room by eight," re 
 plied her mother, " or else they won't be through 
 dinner. We can get out unseen." 
 
 Frothingham maintained his look of blank indiffer- 
 
 [186] 
 
CHAPTER ELEVEN 
 
 ence, but underi eath he was vastly amused " And 
 they're quite unconscious what cads they are," he 
 thought. As if in answer to this, Senator Ballantyne 
 said to him, in a tone of humourous apology : " Our 
 constituents are plain people, Lord Frothingham 
 honest, simple. They lead quiet, old-fashioned lives. 
 I always send my family away or make them ' come off 
 their perch ' when I have to receive anyone from 
 home that is, any but my regular political lieuten 
 ants. To tell you the gospel truth, I'm ashamed to 
 have my old friends see how absurd we've become." 
 
 At six o'clock Frothingham was idling in a small 
 smoking room in the rear of the great parlour it was 
 on the second floor. Senator Ballantyne came in and 
 grew red in the cheeks. " Oh, I didn't expect to see 
 you," he said, with an embarrassed laugh. 
 
 Frothingham pretended not to notice, but he 
 instantly saw the embarrassment, and the cause of it 
 as well. The Senator was not in evening dress, nor 
 even in his uniform of " statesman's frock." To com 
 bat the unfavourable impression his great castle would 
 make upon the excursionists from his distant State 
 he had got himself up in an old blue sack suit with 
 torn pocket and ragged cuff, in trousers bagging at 
 
 [187] 
 
GOLDEN FLEECE 
 
 the knees and springing fantastically where they cov 
 ered his boot-legs. 
 
 He seated himself and talked absently until there 
 was a ring of the front doorbell. He started up. 
 " I must go," he said. " That's the first ones." And 
 he hurried away. 
 
 Frothingham waited a few seconds, then went into 
 the hall and leaned carelessly on the banister where it 
 commanded a view of the front door. He chuckled. 
 Not the pompous and liveried butler was opening it, 
 but Senator Ballantyne himself in his impressive liv 
 ery of the " plain people." And Frothingham 
 grinned as his great hearty voice how different, how 
 much more natural, than his usual voice rolled out a 
 "Why, hello, boys! Hello, Jim! Hello, Rankin. 
 How d'ye do, Mrs. Fisher. Glad to see you, Miss 
 Branigan. The maid wasn't about, so I thought I 
 wouldn't keep you waitin'. Come right in and take 
 off your things. Ladies, I'm sorry to say my wife's 
 run off and left me had to go to a dinner where the 
 President and his wife are to be. You know, we ain't 
 allowed to decline. But we won't miss her. My oldest 
 girl Sue's in the parlour. You remember Sue ? " 
 
 They all went into the " parlour " that is, the 
 
 [188] 
 
CHAPTER ELEVEN 
 
 little first-floor reception room, which had been partly 
 refurnished, or rather, dismantled, for the occasion. 
 The bell rang. Frothingham chuckled again, as he 
 saw, not butler nor manservant nor Senator, but a 
 neatly dressed upstairs girl, without a cap, hasten to 
 open the door. As he heard the rustle of skirts on the 
 stairway leading to the sleeping rooms, he prudently 
 strolled into the smoking room. 
 
 When he went up to dress Hutt said to him : "Beg 
 pardon, my lord, but my, it's queer, the dinner party 
 they're 'avin hin the little back room." 
 
 Frothingham went on shaving. Hutt took silence as 
 permission to gossip. 
 
 " They've sent hoff hall the servants, hexceptin' the 
 maids, my lord. They've got hevery think on the 
 table at once and they're waitin' on themselves." 
 
 " Last night," said Frothingham, " you gave me a 
 shirt with a spot on the collar. You're getting care 
 less and impudent, Hutt." 
 
 When he reached the parlour Mrs. Ballantyne and 
 Yscbel were waiting Mrs. Ballantyne ablaze with 
 rubies and diamonds, Ysobel slim and white and 
 golden in an expensively plain white dress with golden 
 spangles. Mrs. Ballantyne rang for a servant. 
 
 [189] 
 
GOLDEN FLEECE 
 
 " See that the doors leading into the hall downstairs 
 are closed," she said. 
 
 The servant returned and announced that the way 
 was clear. The three descended the grand stairway 
 rapidly, entered the carriage, and drove away " with 
 two on the box." 
 
 Presently Ysobel laughed. " You should have 
 seen Susan, Lord Frothingham," she said. " She was 
 rigged up in a black alpaca made with a basque." 
 
 "Alpaca?" asked Frothingham. "What's that? 
 And what's a basque? " 
 
 " Alpaca is well, it's a stuff they wear out West 
 in the country when they dress up. I suppose they 
 wear it because the country is so dusty, and black 
 alpaca catches and shows every bit of dust. And 
 when you touch it it makes your teeth ache and the 
 gooseflesh rise all over you. A basque it's a sort of 
 waist, only it's little and tight and short on the hips and 
 low in the collar, and it pulls under the arms I can't 
 describe a basque. It has to be seen. My idea of 
 future punishment is to dress for a thousand years in 
 black alpaca made with a basque, and to have to rub 
 your hands over it every five minutes." 
 
 [190] 
 

 XII 
 
 POPE, as Mrs. Ballantyne explained to Froth- 
 ingham, was an Eastern Senator a multi 
 millionaire, sent to the Senate because he prac 
 tically supported, that is, " financed," the machine of 
 his party in his State, besides making large contribu 
 tions to its national machine. " So the * Boss,' as they 
 call the leader of the party in that State," she said, 
 " sold Mr. Pope one of the Senatorships, keeping the 
 other for himself. Mr. Ballantyne is the leader, the 
 master, of his party in his State and, while he's too 
 modest to tell it, is one of the masters of the party in 
 the nation. He could be President if it weren't for 
 the disgusting prejudice among the people against all 
 who happen to have a little something " " a little 
 something " being Mrs. Ballantyne's modest way of 
 speaking of their millions. " But," she went on, " old 
 Mr. Pope is a nonentity. He sits in his seat and votes 
 the way they tell him to and is nice to everybody. 
 Mr. Ballantyne suspects he's getting ready to buy the 
 Vice-Presidency. 
 
 " 
 
GOLDEN FLEECE 
 
 " How much does that cost ? " asked Frothingham. 
 
 " It '11 cost him half a million if the chances of our 
 party's carrying the election are good ; if they're not 
 so good, perhaps he can get it for a quarter of a 
 million. But they may not dare nominate him. 
 They may have to take some popular poor man. The 
 ' many-headed monster,' as Shakespeare calls it, has 
 been grumbling of late. We have a hard task in 
 our country, Lord Frothingham, to keep the people 
 with property in control." 
 
 " It's the same all over the world nowadays, I 
 fancy," said Frothingham. " One has to apologise 
 for being well born or for living in decent style. The 
 trouble with the lower classes at home is that they 
 don't have to work hard enough. They used to be 
 too busy to look about and make themselves and every 
 body uncomfortable by doing what they call think- 
 ing." 
 
 " That's the trouble with our lower classes, too," 
 answered Mrs. Ballantyne, in her grandest manner. 
 " We educate too much." 
 
 The carriage rushed into the brilliantly lighted 
 entrance of Senator Pope's house. Frothingham saw 
 Ysobel's face, saw that she was having a violent attack 
 
 [192] 
 
CHAPTER TWELVE 
 
 of silent laughter. And he understood why. " The 
 young 'un has a sense of humour," he said to himself. 
 " It's ridiculous for these beggars to pose and strut 
 before they've had time to brush the dirt off their 
 knees and hands." 
 
 As they entered the drawing room Frothingham's 
 attention riveted upon two gilt armchairs ensconced 
 in a semicircle of palms and ferns. " For the Presi 
 dent and his wife," said Ysobel. " They're dining 
 here to-night, you know. This is the first President 
 in a long time who has accepted invitations below the 
 Cabinet circle. He comes to Senator Pope's because 
 they're old friends. It's quite an innovation and has 
 caused a great deal of scandal. But I don't blame 
 him. Where's the use in being President if you can't 
 do as you please? " 
 
 Mrs. Pope, stout and red and obviously " flustered," 
 came bustling up. After she had greeted them she 
 said : " Lord Frothingham, you're to take my 
 daughter Elsie in to dinner." Then to Mrs. Ballan- 
 tyne : " Oh, my dear, why didn't you warn me of the 
 quarrel between the Cabinet women and the Speaker's 
 family. Whatever shall I do? Mrs. Secretary Man- 
 don's here, and so are the Speaker and his wife." 
 
 [193] 
 
GOLDEN FLEECE 
 
 " I'd send Grace Mandon in ahead of the Speaker's 
 wife, if I were you," replied Mrs. Ballantyne. " I've 
 no patience with the pretensions of the House. It's 
 distinctly the commonest branch of the Government, 
 while the Cabinet is next to the President." 
 
 " But," objected Mrs. Pope plaintively, " the 
 Speaker is so influential and really fierce about 
 precedence, and his wife has such a tongue and 
 such a temper, and neither he nor she ever for 
 gives." 
 
 " Do as you like, of course," said Mrs. Ballantyne 
 stiffly. Being of the Senate it exasperated her that 
 the House should be placed ahead of it. 
 
 Just then a murmur ran around the room " The 
 President ! The President ! " Those who were 
 seated rose, conversation stopped, and the orchestra 
 began to play. " Bless my soul," muttered Frothing- 
 ham, " they're playing ' God Save the King ' ! " 
 And then he remembered that the Americans had, as he 
 put it, " stolen our tune and set a lot of rot about 
 themselves to it." The President and his wife entered, 
 he frowning and red and intent upon the two gilt 
 chairs. Mrs. Pope curtsied, her husband contracted 
 his stiff old figure in a comical half -salaam. All bent 
 
 [194] 
 
CHAPTER TWELVE 
 
 their heads and a few of the young people, among 
 them Ysobel, curtsied. 
 
 " See him looking at those chairs ? " said she to 
 Frothingham. 
 
 Frothingham nodded. 
 
 " He's awfully sour at the etiquette here," she went 
 on. " I suppose he's afraid the country '11 find out 
 about it and cut up rough. He's smashing right and 
 left, and everyone's wondering when he'll throw out 
 the gilt chairs." 
 
 But his courage apparently failed him, for he and 
 his wife advanced to the " thrones " and seated them 
 selves. No one else sat, the men moving about to get 
 the partners indicated on the little gilt-edged crested 
 cards they had found in envelopes addressed to them 
 and laid upon the tables in the coat-rooms. Frothing 
 ham examined Elsie Pope and saw that she was small 
 and slight, square in the shoulders, thin in the neck, 
 her hair of an uncertain shade of brown, her eyes 
 commonplace, her features irregular. " She. looks 
 a good-tempered soul," he said to himself, searching 
 resolutely for merits. And then he noted that her 
 hands were red, and that she had flat, rather wide 
 
 wrists. " A good, plain soul," he added. He sat 
 
 [195] 
 
GOLDEN FLEECE 
 
 silent, waiting for her to begin to entertain him he 
 hadn't got used to the American custom of the men 
 entertaining the women ; and the New York and Bos 
 ton women, acquainted with the British way, had 
 humoured him. But he waited in vain. At last he 
 stole a glance at her, and noted a gleam in the corner 
 of her eye, the flutter of a humour-curve at the corner 
 of her mouth. " A shrewd little thing, I suspect," he 
 thought. And he said to her, " No really, I don't 
 bite." 
 
 Her eyes twinkled. " I was beginning to be afraid 
 you didn't bark, either," she said. 
 
 His expression retired behind his eyeglass. " Nor 
 do I, unless I'm bid." 
 
 " I like to be talked to I'd so much rather criti 
 cise than be criticised." 
 
 " What do you like to hear about ? " he asked. 
 
 " About the man who's talking. It's the only sub 
 ject he'll really put his heart into, isn't it? " 
 
 Frothingham smiled faintly, as if greeting an old 
 and not especially admired acquaintance. 
 
 " I'm so disappointed," she said presently. " All 
 winter I've had the same man take me in everywhere 
 you know, we follow precedence very closely here in 
 
 [196] 
 
CHAPTER TWELVE 
 
 Washington. And, when I found I was to have a new 
 man, I had such hopes. The other man and I had 
 got bored to death with each other. And now 
 you're threatening to be a failure ! " 
 
 Frothingham did not like this it was pert for a 
 woman to speak thus to him; he resented it as a man 
 and he resented it as Lord Frothingham. " That's a 
 jest, ain't it?" he drawled. "We English, you 
 know, have a horribly defective sense of American 
 humour." 
 
 " No, it wasn't a jest," she replied. " It was a 
 rudeness, and I beg your pardon. I thought to say 
 something smart, and I missed. Let's change the 
 subject. Do you see that intellectual-looking man 
 with the beard on the other side of the table next to 
 Ysobel Ballantyne?" 
 
 "The surly chap?" 
 
 " Yes and he's surly because mamma has made a 
 dreadful mistake. She's put him two below the place 
 his rank entitles him to. He'll act like a savage all 
 evening." 
 
 " Fancy ! What a small matter to fly into a rage 
 over." 
 
 " A small matter for a large man, but a large mat- 
 
 [197] 
 
GOLDEN FLEECE 
 
 ter for a small man. Sometimes I think all men are 
 small. They're much vainer than women ! " 
 
 " Why do you say that? " 
 
 " Because of what I've seen in Washington. They 
 say the women started this craze for precedence. I 
 don't know whether that's so or not. But I do know 
 that in the three years I've been out I've found the 
 men worse than the women. And those things look so 
 much pettier in a man, too." 
 
 " But I thought there wasn't any rank in this 
 country." 
 
 " So I thought I was educated in France. I be 
 lieve in rank and all that it seems to me absurd to 
 talk about equality. But I despise this silly squabble 
 over little places that last only a few years at most. 
 As Mr. Boughton was saying you know Mr. Bough- 
 ton?" 
 
 " You mean the Second Secretary at our Em 
 bassy ? " 
 
 " Yes. He said to me only last night : ' America 
 has an aristocracy just as we have, but gets from it all 
 the evils and none of the good, all the pettiness, none 
 of the dignity and sense of responsibility.' ' 
 
 " But they tell me it's different out West" 
 
 [198] 
 
CHAPTER TWELVE 
 
 61 1 don't know. I can only speak of the East 
 especially of Washington. There isn't a capital in 
 Europe or Asia, the diplomats say, with so elaborate 
 a system of rank and precedence as we have. Why, 
 do you know, it's so bad that the fifteen-hundred- 
 dollar-a-year clerks and their families have a society 
 of their own between the circles of those who get 
 eighteen hundred and those who get twelve hundred. 
 And they'd rather die than mix with those who get 
 less than they do." 
 
 "Really! Really, now!" 
 
 " And anything like a good time is almost impos 
 sible. It's precedence, precedence everywhere, always. 
 You can't entertain informally." 
 
 " It must be as if one were laced in a straight 
 jacket." 
 
 " I'm going abroad next year and am never coming 
 back, if I can help it. I'm going where at least there's 
 real rank to get excited about. I'll go with Ysobel 
 and her mother unless Ysobel decides to marry on 
 this side." 
 
 Frothingham was internally agitated, but gave no 
 sign of it. 
 
 " She's marrying either Mr. Boughton or that 
 
 [199] 
 
GOLDEN FLEECE 
 
 handsome Italian sitting next to Mrs. Ballantyne 
 the Prince di Rontivogli." 
 
 " Ah," said Frothingham. And to himself, " Just 
 my rotten luck ! " 
 
 " She makes no secret of it," continued Miss Pope, 
 " so I'm not violating her confidence. She says she's 
 determined to marry higher than her sister did. She 
 likes Mr. Boughton better, though I should think 
 she'd prefer the Prince his face is ideal, and such 
 manners! But, while Mr. Boughton is his grand- 
 uncle's heir and his granduncle is old and a widower 
 still well, the dukedom might slip away from him. 
 For instance, he might die before his granduncle." 
 
 " That would be ghastly for her, wouldn't it, 
 now? " said Frothingham. 
 
 " It would kill poor Ysobel. She's so proud and 
 ambitious ! And that's why she has an eye for the 
 Prince he's of a frightfully old family, you know. 
 One of his ancestors tried to poison Cesare Borgia 
 and did succeed in getting himself poisoned or smoth 
 ered or something thrilling. And they were an old, 
 old family then. Oh, Ysobel is flying high. If her 
 father would give her mother and her a free hand, I 
 think she'd land a prince of some royal family." 
 
 [200] 
 
7 
 
 Cosimo, Prince di Rontivogli 
 
CHAPTER TWELVE 
 
 Behind his mask Frothingham was hastily reform 
 ing his line of battle. The Ballantyne fortune was 
 apparently inaccessible to an attack from a mere 
 Earl; but he could keep it under surveillance while 
 employing his main force against the Pope citadel, 
 which seemed to be inviting attack. He did not fancy 
 Miss Pope she was too patently conscious of her 
 cleverness and it was of a kind that did not attract him, 
 was not what he regarded as feminine; nor was she 
 physically up to his standard for his Countess-to-be. 
 But she had the essential ; and he had been in Amer 
 ica nearly five months and had had two, practically 
 three, failures. 
 
 For the rest of his two weeks at the Ballantynes' he 
 spent as much time as he courteously could with Miss 
 Pope. And when he joined Joe Wallingford at the 
 New Willard, sharing his suite and paying less than 
 a third of the expenses he was with her a large part 
 of each day, driving with her, riding with her, lunch 
 ing where she lunched, dining where she dined, danc 
 ing with her, walking with her, sending her flowers. 
 In Boston and New York he had been somewhat hin 
 dered by the chaperon system, careless though it was. 
 Here chaperoning was the flimsiest of farces, and he 
 
 [201 ] 
 
GOLDEN FLEECE 
 
 and Elsie were together almost as freely as if she were 
 a man. 
 
 In his fourth week in Washington he called one 
 afternoon to keep an engagement to walk with her at 
 half -past four. She had not returned from a girl's 
 luncheon to which she had gone. At ten minutes past 
 five she came, full of apology for her delay " I 
 really couldn't leave. The lunch was over before 
 three o'clock, but the Secretary of State's daughter 
 was enjoying herself and, though we were all furious 
 with her, as we had other engagements, she wouldn't 
 leave; and, of course, none of us could leave until she 
 left. When she did finally take herself away the Sec 
 retary of the Treasury's daughter had given up her 
 engagement and had settled herself for the rest of the 
 afternoon. She didn't leave until ten minutes ago. 
 So there we were, penned in and forced to stay." 
 
 " Precedence again ? " said Frothingham. 
 
 " Precedence. It's outrageous that those two girls 
 should show so little consideration." 
 
 " I've known the same sort of thing to happen at 
 home," Frothingham assured her. " Once when I'd 
 gone to a house only for dinner I had to stay until 
 half -past four in the morning. The Prince of Wales 
 
CHAPTER TWELVE 
 
 was there, and he was just then mad about ' bridge. 5 
 He insisted on playing and playing. Several of us 
 were asleep in the next room the hostess was nodding 
 over her cards." 
 
 " But he must have seen," said Elsie. " Why 
 didn't he take the hint? " 
 
 " Well, you see, the poor chap led such a deadly 
 dull life in those days. When he found himself hav 
 ing a bit of fun he didn't care a rap what it cost 
 anyone else. It's a mistake to bother with other 
 people's feelings, don't you think?' 1 
 
 " It only makes them supersensitive and hard to get 
 on with," replied Elsie. " I used to be considerate. 
 Now I'm considerate only when it's positively rude 
 not to be. Besides, I must expect to buy my way 
 through the world. I never had any friends though 
 I used to think I had, when I was a fool and didn't 
 know that just the sight of wealth makes human 
 beings tie up their good instincts and turn loose the 
 worst there is in them. Even when rich people are 
 friendly with each other it's usually in the hope of 
 getting some sordid advantage." 
 
 " Do you apply that to yourself or only to 
 others ? " 
 
 [203] 
 
GOLDEN FLEECE 
 
 " It applies to me it has applied to me ever since 
 I found what sort of a world I was living in." 
 
 " I don't believe it, my dear girl," drawled Froth- 
 ingham, the more convincingly for the lack of energy 
 in his tone. And he gave her a quick, queer look 
 through his eyeglass and was stolid again. 
 
 She coloured just a little. " Oh, I suppose I'd be as 
 big a goose as ever if I should fall in love again." 
 "Again?" 
 
 She laughed. " I've been in love four times in the 
 last four years, and almost in love three times more. 
 That's a poor record for a Washington girl there 
 are so many temptations, with all these fascinating 
 foreigners streaming through. But I'm not counting 
 the times I've been made love to in half a dozen modern 
 languages I and my father's money." 
 
 " Possibly you were unjust to some of the men 
 who've said they admired you. They may not have 
 attached so much importance to your father's money 
 as you do." 
 
 The thrust tickled her vanity nature had given 
 her an over-measure of vanity to compensate for her 
 under-measure of charm. She looked pleased, though 
 
 she said : " I don't deceive myself as to myself." 
 
 [204] 
 
CHAPTER TWELVE 
 
 " A man might have been attracted to you because 
 you had money," continued Frothingham dispassion 
 ately, " and might have stayed on for your own 
 sake." 
 
 Elsie lifted her eyebrows. " Perhaps," she said. 
 " I'll admit it's possible." 
 
 " And, honestly now, do you pretend that you'd 
 marry a man who had nothing but love to offer you? 
 What has attracted you in the men you thought well 
 of? You say there have been four or, rather, four 
 and three halves. Has any one of 'em been a poor 
 devil of a nobody ? " 
 
 Elsie hesitated ; in the twilight he saw from the cor 
 ner of his eye that her upper lip was trembling. 
 They were walking near the tall, white, glistening 
 monument, in the quiet street that skirts the grounds 
 of the White House. " One," she said, at last, in a 
 low voice. " I didn't care especially for him. But 
 sometimes I think he really did care for me he was a 
 wild, sensitive creature." She looked at Frothingham 
 and smiled. " And when I get in my black moods I'm 
 half sorry I sent him away." 
 
 "But you did send him away, didn't you?' 5 
 Frothingham's expression and tone were satirical, yet 
 
 [205] 
 
GOLDEN FLEECE 
 
 sympathetic, too. " And you complain of men for 
 being precisely as you are ! " 
 
 " I hadn't thought of that," she admitted. 
 
 " I take it for granted the girl who consents to 
 marry me will consent because she wishes to be a 
 Countess." He drew closer to her she looked her 
 best in twilight hours, and he succeeded in putting as 
 much tenderness into his voice as was necessary to 
 enable so drawling and indifferent a person to create 
 an impression of sentiment. " If I were walking here 
 with the girl I wished to win, I'd say nothing of sen 
 timent. I'd simply trust to the only thing I have that 
 could possibly induce her to listen to me." 
 
 She glanced shyly up at him he thought her 
 almost pretty. 
 
 " Do you think that would win her? " he asked in a 
 low tone. 
 
 " I don't know," she replied slowly. Her com 
 monplace voice had also been touched with the magic 
 that had transformed her face. 
 
 " Won't you think of it? " 
 
 " If you wish," she murmured. 
 
 They went on in silence a few minutes, then she 
 spoke in an attempt at her usual voice : " But we 
 
 [206] 
 
CHAPTER TWELVE 
 
 must turn back. I'll have just time to dress for 
 dinner." 
 
 And he decided that he would say no more on the 
 principal subject for several days. He thought he 
 understood how to deal with American girls rather 
 better now. " I'll give her a chance to walk round the 
 trap," he thought. And then he reminded himself 
 that it was hardly a trap wasn't she getting the 
 better of the bargain ? " She's indulging in a luxury, 
 while I'm after a desperate necessary. And, by Jove, 
 it won't be easy not to make a face, if I get it with 
 her." 
 
 [207] 
 
XIII 
 
 SO confident was he and so out of conceit 
 with his impending success that he took a 
 day's vacation, going up to New York with 
 Wallingford to attend a ball for which Longview had 
 hired half of Sherry's, and otherwise to amuse himself. 
 The revisiting of the scene of his early failure 
 depressed him; he lost nearly a thousand dollars at 
 Canfield's ; he borrowed a thousand from Wallingford ; 
 he returned to Washington in the depths of the blues. 
 And he found the posture of his affairs completely 
 changed. 
 
 On the very day he gave Elsie the chance to become 
 a Countess, Prince Rontivogli had discovered that 
 Ysobel Ballantyne had decided that she was suffi 
 ciently in love with Boughton to take the risk of his 
 not succeeding to the title. Rontivogli was not the 
 man to waste time on impossibilities indeed, he had 
 no time to waste. He turned away from the beautiful 
 Miss Ballantyne instantly, and with all the ardour of 
 
 [208] 
 
CHAPTER THIRTEEN 
 
 his fiery Southern nature laid siege to Elsie Pope. 
 And, while Elsie was somewhat reserved in her wel 
 come, he found an ally in her father, who thought it 
 would sound extremely well to be able to say, " My 
 daughter, the Princess." 
 
 Rontivogli was tall, had a clear, pallid skin, elo 
 quent black eyes, the brow and nose and chin of an 
 Italian patrician, the manners and speech of chival 
 rous adoration for women which disguise profound 
 contempt for their intelligence. 
 
 When Frothingham, just returned from New York, 
 and still enshrouded in surly gloom, drove up to Pope's 
 door, he saw Rontivogli's cabriolet standing a few 
 yards down the drive. Rontivogli was conducting 
 himself in Washington as if he were rich, so plausibly 
 that only the foreign element was without doubts as 
 to the object of his visit to America. At sight of this 
 trap Frothingham scowled. "What's that Italian 
 doing here ? " he said to himself, and his fear answered 
 the question. When they came face to face in the 
 parlour Elsie greatly enjoyed it. The Italian was 
 smooth and urbane ; Frothingham, careless of the feel 
 ings of a man he despised and thoroughly English in 
 his indifference to the demands of courtesy to Elsie, 
 
 [209] 
 
GOLDEN FLEECE 
 
 was almost uncivil. He and Elsie talked for a few min 
 utes, then she drew Rontivogli into the conversation. 
 The Prince answered in French, and French became 
 the language. Frothingham spoke it far worse than 
 Rontivogli spoke English, so he was practically ex 
 cluded. He sat dumb and stolid, wondering why " the 
 brute hasn't the decency to take himself off when I 
 came last." 
 
 But " the brute " drew Elsie into a lively discussion 
 on a book he had sent her and, because there was no 
 break in the argument, was seemingly not impolite in 
 lingering. It was almost an hour before he rose, 
 kissed her hand, gave her an adoring look, said 
 " A bientot," and departed. But, although he was 
 physically gone, he was actually still there if any 
 thing Frothingham was more acutely conscious of him. 
 
 " I don't believe Miss Ballantyne could stand that 
 fellow," he said, aware of his tactlessness, but too 
 angry to care. " I think all those Latins unendur 
 able. They're a snaky lot and their manners suggest 
 waiters and valets." 
 
 Elsie flushed and slightly drew in the corners of her 
 mouth, a sure sign that her temper had been roused in 
 the worst way through wounded vanity. " Oh, you 
 
 [210] 
 
CHAPTER THIRTEEN 
 
 British are so insular," she replied, " and so self- 
 satisfied. Here in Washington we learn to appreciate 
 all kinds of foreigners and to make allowances even for 
 Englishmen " that last with a mere veneer of good 
 nature. " I think Rontivogli charming. He's so in 
 telligent, and has so much temperament." 
 
 Frothingham recovered his self-control in presence 
 of obvious danger. He looked calmly at her through 
 his eyeglass. " Dare say you're right," he drawled. 
 " Rontivogli's a decent enough chap, so far as I know, 
 and for an Italian devilish clean-looking." 
 
 Elsie had no intention of driving him off; in spite 
 of the Italian's superiority in title and " tempera 
 ment," she preferred the Englishman she knew him 
 better and in a more candid way. She became concili 
 atory, and they were soon amicable again. But Froth 
 ingham saw that his vacation had been perilously 
 costly, that he must work to reinstate himself, that it 
 was not a wise moment for reopening the matter of 
 the engagement which only four days ago seemed all 
 but settled. He found that Elsie was dining at the 
 Italian Embassy, to go afterwards to a ball at the 
 Vice-President's to which he was invited. He ar 
 ranged to see her there and left. 
 
GOLDEN FLEECE 
 
 Boughton and he dined together at the Metropol 
 itan Club. While they were having a before-dinner 
 cocktail Boughton told him, in confidence, that he was 
 engaged to Ysobel Ballantyne. " So that's why 
 I find Rontivogli poaching/' thought Frothing- 
 ham. And he said presently : " What do you know 
 about that chap Rontivogli? He looks a queer 
 
 >un." 
 
 " Not a thing," replied Boughton. " I had all our 
 fellows writing over to the other side, following him 
 up. The answers thus far show nothing downright 
 shady. He's down to a box of a house and a few 
 acres just north of Milan. And that's swamped in 
 mortgages. No one knows how he raised the wind for 
 this trip. He seems to have a good bit of cash, doesn't 
 he?" 
 
 " I'm particularly interested in knowing about 
 him," continued Frothingham. " He's developed an 
 astonishing interest in a girl friend of mine. I'd hate 
 to see her taken in by a scamp. And I'm sure he's 
 that." 
 
 " Oh," said Boughton. " Miss Pope? " 
 
 " Yes," replied Frothingham. " And she thinks 
 well of him." 
 
CHAPTER THIRTEEN 
 
 " I'll be glad to help you, old man. I sha'n't drop 
 my inquiry as I'd intended." 
 
 " Thanks," said Frothingham. And they talked of 
 other matters. 
 
 When he looked Elsie up at the Vice-President's 
 that night for the first of the dances she had prom 
 ised him, he found her on a rustic bench in the garden, 
 almost screened from observation, Rontivogli beside 
 her. The Italian's classic face was aglow, and Froth 
 ingham saw that he had checked a torrent of enam 
 oured eloquence. He saw, also, that Elsie was not 
 pleased by the interruption. However, she left Ronti 
 vogli and went with him. As they entered the ball 
 room he said : " I don't care for this music, do you ? 
 Let's sit it out. Only " he gave her a look of quiet 
 raillery " you must engage not to go back to your 
 volcano until my dance is over." 
 
 " Volcano ? ' : A smile of pleased vanity strayed 
 into her eyes and out again. 
 
 " Yes your Vesuvius, whose eruption I was brute 
 enough to interrupt. Beastly of me, wasn't it ? " 
 
 " Rontivogli seems to annoy you a great deal." 
 
 " He? Not in the least." And his tranquil eye 
 glass affirmed his falsehood. " But I assure you he'll 
 
 [213] 
 
GOLDEN FLEECE 
 
 spout all the fiercer for the interruption. I know 
 those Southern chaps. I don't wonder we stand no 
 show against 'em. I tossed the sponge as soon as I 
 saw what he was about." 
 
 They were sitting on the stairs now and could talk 
 without being overheard. " Possibly you may remem 
 ber," he went on, " I said something that was rather 
 important to me last Thursday, down near the mon 
 ument at half-past six precisely, to be exact I 
 heard a clock strike as I finished. Do you recall it? 5! 
 
 Elsie was puzzled by his light, satirical tone. 
 " Yes," she said. " I do vaguely recall that you said 
 something vague." 
 
 " I didn't mean to be vague. But that doesn't 
 matter now. I see there's no chance for me at pres 
 ent. And I wished to say to you that at least I shan't 
 give up our delightful friendship. No matter what 
 you do with your Italian, you'll feel that I'm your 
 friend, won't you ? ' : Frothingham said it as if he 
 meant it ; and to a considerable extent he did mean it 
 chagrined though he was, he fancied her so little 
 in the role he had invited her to play that his prospec 
 tive defeat found him not utterly despondent. He 
 had reasoned out his course carefully and had come 
 
CHAPTER THIRTEEN 
 
 to the conclusion that his chance lay in posing as 
 her disinterested friend. Perhaps she would confide 
 in him, would give him the opportunity to advise and 
 criticise an admirable position from which to under 
 mine and destroy his rival. 
 
 As Elsie had not fully made up her mind to Ronti- 
 vogli, and as she saw nothing but advantage to her in 
 keeping Frothingham " on the string," she responded 
 to his frank and manly appeal. And she believed 
 what he said, as she believed pretty much everything 
 men told her ; and she liked him better than ever. " If 
 he were only a prince," she said to herself regretfully, 
 " and had temperament." 
 
 That same night she accepted Rontivogli; when 
 Frothingham came to lunch the next day she told 
 him. " Well," he drawled, " I can't say I'm shouting 
 glad. But I can honestly congratulate him. And 
 I hope you won't regret." 
 
 " We're not announcing the engagement for several 
 days," she said. 
 
 " That's good. You don't mind my saying you 
 know we've agreed to be friends but I think you 
 your father ought to make careful inquiry about him. 
 I'm sure everything's all right, but it's prudent." 
 
 [215] 
 
GOLDEN FLEECE 
 
 Elsie smiled. " Oh, we have made inquiries," she 
 said. " Besides, anyone can see what sort of man he 
 is anyone but a prejudiced Englishman." 
 
 "I don't deny prejudice. Is it surprising?' 1 
 And he gave her a long look that might have meant 
 anything or nothing. " But one can't be too care 
 ful about foreigners." 
 
 " Foreigners ! " Elsie laughed with good-hu 
 moured mockery. " And what are you? ' 
 
 " Why, an Englishman. We don't count as for 
 eigners here." 
 
 " No but as as " Elsie had " poor relations " 
 on the tip of her tactless tongue, but she caught it 
 and changed it to " step-brothers." And she went 
 on, " Which is much more suspicious." 
 
 Frothingham found encouragement in her willing 
 ness to discuss her fiance with him it showed plainly 
 how foreign she felt to Rontivogli, how friendly to 
 him. A few afternoons later it was the day after 
 the dinner at which her engagement was formally 
 announced she went with Frothingham to call on 
 " Madame Almansa " in her surroundings of Spartan 
 simplicity. They found Ysobel and Boughton there 
 also, and when Ysobel took Frothingham and Bough- 
 
 [216] 
 
CHAPTER THIRTEEN 
 
 ton into the small library adjoining the smaller draw 
 ing room to look at some old prints " Sue " had 
 brought with her from Spain, Elsie talked with 
 "Sue " of the engagement. 
 
 Madame Almansa was chary of congratulations, 
 full of cautionings and doubts. " I don't wish to 
 cast a shadow on your happiness, dear for you are 
 happy, aren't you? 5: 
 
 " Indeed I am," replied Elsie convincingly Ron- 
 tivogli was an ideal lover ; he could even sing his mad 
 passion in a voice that was well-trained and thril 
 ling. 
 
 " But you know my sad experience." Madame 
 Almansa sighed like Medea thinking on the treachery 
 of Jason. Her glance fell upon the engagement ring. 
 She took Elsie's hand. " How beautiful ! " she ex 
 claimed. " I love emeralds and that is a magnificent 
 one. And only a tiny flaw." 
 
 Elsie coloured with annoyance. " I think you are 
 mistaken," she said. " It's a perfect stone." 
 
 " Certainly it is perfect, dear," replied Madame 
 Almansa in her superior, informative tone. " Perfect 
 for an emerald. But, you know, there are no emeralds 
 of size anywhere in the world that haven't flaws. At 
 
 [217] 
 
GOLDEN FLEECE 
 
 least, I never heard of one. Emeralds are valuable in 
 spite of their flaws." 
 
 Elsie coloured again, this time with annoyance at 
 having exposed her ignorance. 
 
 " A superb setting," continued Madame Almansa. 
 " It must be very, very old. I love that kind of set 
 ting beautifully engraved, dull gold. The only ob 
 jection is that it's the best kind for deceiving one as 
 to genuineness, isn't it? One could not tell whether 
 that stone was genuine or imitation. You know, they 
 make such wonderful imitations. When I was going 
 out in the world I had all my best jewels reproduced 
 in imitation stuff, and usually I wore the imitation. 
 One felt so much safer." 
 
 Elsie drew her hand away, smiling sweetly. She 
 was inwardly raging "The cat!" she said to her 
 self. " Clawing me viciously, and purring as if she 
 hadn't a claw." 
 
 She left in a few minutes, Rontivogli calling for 
 her. To relieve her feelings, and also because she was 
 in the habit of saying nearly everything that came 
 into her head, she told him what Madame Almansa 
 had said, making vigorous comments as she related. 
 
 Rontivogli, half turned toward her as they sat side 
 
CHAPTER THIRTEEN 
 
 by side in her victoria, regarded her with his luminous 
 smile. " That is the way of the world, ma belle et 
 bonne" he said in his gentlest manner. " It is diffi 
 cult to harden one's self to such wickedness. But 
 there is also much that is beautiful and fine. And we 
 you and I will shut everything else out of our 
 lives, will we not? " 
 
 He made her feel unworthy, almost " common," 
 when he talked in that fashion she realised painfully 
 that she was sadly lacking in " temperament," and 
 she dreaded that he might find her out. 
 
 " The ring," he went on, " has been in the family 
 for eight hundred years perhaps longer. It is un 
 changed. No question of its genuineness has ever 
 been raised, so far as I know. We are not so suspi 
 cious as some of you Americans." 
 
 " She didn't question it's genuineness," replied 
 Elsie. " She simply wished to make me uncomfortable 
 with a malicious insinuation. Or, maybe, she was 
 just talking. It was silly of me to tell you." 
 
 He protested that he was not disturbed. But he 
 seemed unable long to keep off the subject, returning 
 to it as the cleverest habitual liar will fatuously return 
 to his unquestioned lie to weaken it by trying further 
 
 [219] 
 
GOLDEN FLEECE 
 
 to bolster it up. So persistent was he that he at last 
 made her uneasy not that she suspected him, or was 
 conscious of having been disturbed by his unnecessary 
 reassurances. The next morning she went down to a 
 jeweller's in Pennsylvania Avenue she had other 
 business there and thought it her sole object in 
 going, forgetting that she had intended to send her 
 mother. She discussed several proposed purchases 
 with the manager, whom she knew well. As she talked 
 she had her elbows on a show case, and her ungloved 
 hands clasped so that the ring was in full view 
 curiously, it was not on the engagement finger. He 
 noted it, thought she wished him to speak of it, be 
 cause as she exhibited it she often glanced at it. 
 
 " Would you mind letting me look at that beauti 
 ful ring? " he asked. 
 
 " Certainly." She drew it off with some nerv 
 ousness, gave it to him, and, as he looked, watched 
 him and it alternately with vague anxiety. 
 
 " A very old, a very quaint setting," he said, " and 
 a fine " 
 
 He paused ; her mouth was dry and her skin hot. 
 
 " A fine stone a beautiful stone," he continued. 
 " One of the finest I ever saw. The flaw is slight." 
 
 [220] 
 
CHAPTER THIRTEEN 
 
 Elsie drew a long breath she felt an unaccount 
 able sense of relief. The manager took his glass, went 
 to the window, and studied the stone and the setting. 
 " I'm glad to hear you say the stone's genuine," said 
 she, now admitting to herself that Madame Alman- 
 sa's poison had been lurking far down in her mind. 
 " Someone doubted it, and as it was important to me 
 to know, I intended to ask you." 
 
 " In that case," said the manager, " I feel it's my 
 duty to tell you the stone's an imitation." 
 
 Elsie grew rigid and cold from amazement and 
 rising horror. 
 
 " A good imitation," continued the manager, intent 
 upon the stone, " but unquestionably not genuine. 
 The setting makes it additionally deceptive." 
 
 " How much is the ring worth? " she asked, gath 
 ering herself together heroically. 
 
 " Well the stone, of course, is worthless a few 
 dollars. But the setting is old and quite beautiful. 
 It might bring a hundred or so from a collector if it 
 hit his fancy and had an authentic history. If the 
 stone were genuine, the ring would be worth about 
 five thousand, I should say, as a rough guess." 
 
 " Fortunately, I haven't bought it yet," she said 
 
 ] 
 
GOLDEN FLEECE 
 
 carelessly. And she took it from him and put it in 
 her pocketbook. " The stone seems to have been un 
 disturbed in that setting for a long time," she added, 
 as she closed the pocketbook. 
 
 " Oh, there's no telling as to that. It was manu 
 factured by the newest process. It has been only 
 two or three years, I believe, since they learned to 
 put in the flaws so cleverly. They make them very 
 well in New York now." 
 
 " Thank you so much, Mr. Macready," said Elsie. 
 " You won't say anything about it, will you? " 
 
 " You needn't have asked that, Miss Pope," an 
 swered Macready with a reproachful smile. 
 
 " Thank you again," she said. It was not until she 
 was driving away, that her cheeks began to burn 
 fiercely and the hot tears of shame and anger to scald 
 her eyes. 
 
XIV 
 
 SHE went straight to her father with the whole 
 story. He listened sitting at his desk, balancing 
 a broad ivory paper-cutter on his forefinger. She 
 felt much better when she had finished; her anger 
 seemed to have been carried off in her words. 
 
 After a long silence her father said : " What do you 
 wish to do? " 
 
 She looked foolish. " I don't know, papa," she 
 said feebly. " What do you think we ought to do? ' ! 
 
 " He may have been honestly deceived." 
 
 " But Mr. Macready said " 
 
 " That was merely his offhand opinion," he inter 
 rupted. " They've been making imitation jewels of 
 all kinds for years. I know the Italians have long 
 been clever at it." 
 
 Elsie was silent. She could not help remembering 
 Rontivogli's stupid, over-crafty reiterations. She 
 knew that he knew. 
 
 " And," continued her father, examining the paper- 
 
GOLDEN FLEECE 
 
 cutter critically, " there isn't the slightest doubt as to 
 the genuineness of Prince Rontivogli himself." 
 
 Another long silence during which neither father 
 nor daughter showed the slightest curiosity as to what 
 thoughts the other's face might be revealing. 
 
 " Even if he did wilfully deceive in this not vitally 
 important matter," continued the aspirant for a 
 princess-daughter, " I can imagine many extenuating 
 circumstances. It isn't the young man's fault that 
 he's poor. It isn't unnatural that he shouldn't wish 
 to expose his poverty especially if he " the Sena 
 tor's face took on a smile of fatherly benevolence 
 " happened to care for the young lady. * All's fair 
 in love and war,' you know. And we must not judge 
 harshly those who have less than we have. Still - " 
 
 Rontivogli's " temperament " was vigorously rein 
 forcing his title in repairing the havoc the false jewel 
 had played with him in Elsie's mind. He had been 
 a convincing lover ; Elsie had too much vanity and too 
 much desire to be loved madly not to be a credulous 
 young woman. " I don't know what to do, papa," 
 she said in the tone that proclaims a decision reached 
 and a wish for support in it. 
 
 Perhaps," replied the Senator slowly, the person- 
 
 " 
 
7 can imagine many extenuating circumstances' 
 
CHAPTER FOURTEEN 
 
 ification of forgiving charity, " it might be best to 
 let the matter drop." 
 
 " But I simply can't wear the ring ! I'd feel 
 such a fraud, and I'd soon be disliking him, though 
 this may not be at all his fault. Besides, someone 
 might " 
 
 " That could be easily arranged." Her father's 
 eyes twinkled he was preparing to treat the discov 
 ered deception as a little private joke on the prince 
 between his daughter and himself. " We can get 
 Tiffany to set an emerald in the ring. No one will 
 know. And some day you can tease him about it. If 
 he is innocent it would mortify him to learn the truth 
 now, wouldn't it ? " 
 
 Elsie smiled somewhat cheerfully. She was trying 
 hard to make herself doubt the prince's guilty knowl 
 edge. " It must be done right away," she said. 
 
 She wore her gloves that afternoon. But Ronti- 
 vogli, with nerves like a sensitive plant's leaves, felt 
 a change in her, hard though she tried to seem un 
 changed. In the clear light of hind-sight he had 
 been cursing himself for saying so much to her of 
 Madame Almansa's insinuations ; and at first he feared 
 that by his blundering he had roused suspicion in her. 
 
GOLDEN FLEECE 
 
 But she showed that she was still in the mood to marry 
 him, and the negotiations for settlements went 
 smoothly on between Senator Pope's lawyer and the 
 attorney to the Italian Embassy, whom he had en- 
 aged to represent him. He dismissed his fear as a 
 wild imagining of guilt and set himself to remove the 
 coolness just under Elsie's surface of warmth by lav 
 ishing his " temperament " upon her. And he was re 
 warded with swift success. A flaw in such a lover was 
 as inconsequential as a flaw in an emerald and was 
 it not as much a matter of course? 
 
 Toward the end of the week she went with her father 
 to New York, and in two days Tiffany changed the 
 setting for a consideration of four thousand eight 
 hundred dollars. She returned fully restored but 
 she kept the false stone, hid it far back in the bottom 
 of her jewel-safe. 
 
 The shock and its after-effects were soon over. She 
 was a little astonished that she, so used to the quaint 
 ways of foreigners, should have attached importance 
 to the quaintness of this foreigner a lover who was 
 fiery and infatuated, a lover who sang, a lover who was 
 a Prince of a " house " that ruled and plotted and 
 patronised the arts when Europe beyond the Alps was 
 
CHAPTER FOURTEEN 
 
 a savage wilderness. Rontivogli had not been study 
 ing women for twenty years or ever since he was 
 eighteen aided by a classic face, a classic figure, a 
 classic name, and classic recklessness, without learn 
 ing thoroughly the business he was now follow 
 ing. 
 
 Frothingham had ceased to hope, and, for lack of 
 any other opening, was arranging to go to Chicago, 
 there to visit his steamer friend Barney, whom he had 
 not permitted to forget him Barney had a marriage 
 able daughter and was rated at eleven millions; also, 
 Chicago was reputed to be a promising field for titled 
 foreigners. He felt that he was neglecting business 
 in lingering at Washington. He saw no signs, heard 
 no news, of available rich girls or rich men's daugh 
 ters. Half a dozen questions about any girl and he 
 would get an answer that would force him to strike 
 her from his list the father was opposed to large 
 settlements ; the family was opposed to international 
 marriages; the family's social ambitions were of the 
 new cis- Atlantic kind; the daughter was already 
 engaged; the mother's aim was for princely or ducal 
 rank. And he was kept in low spirits by the spectacle 
 of the triumphant Rontivogli and was exasperated by 
 
GOLDEN FLEECE 
 
 Elsie's treating him as an object of pity, a rejected 
 and inconsolable lover. 
 
 As he sat alone in a corner of the club, staring 
 with grim satire into the ugly face of his affairs, upon 
 him intruded a man whom he had often described as 
 the most viciously tiresome person he had ever met 
 Count Eitel zu Blickenstern. He disliked Blicken- 
 stern because he was a German ; he avoided him because 
 he was dull, because he was a chronic and ingenious 
 borrower of small sums of money, and because every 
 remark that seemed to him to have been intended hu 
 mourously was hailed by him with a loud, mirthless 
 laugh the laugh of those who have no notion of wit 
 or humour and fear their deformity will be discovered. 
 
 Frothingham had first met Blickenstern in the 
 Riviera, where he was living on the last lees of toler 
 ance. He would have cut him when he ran across him 
 in New York had he not found him in high favour 
 with the women who dominated fashionable society. 
 They admitted Blickenstern as they admitted almost 
 any of the few available men with no occupation but 
 idleness. They needed escorts, attendants, fetch-and- 
 carry men ; Blickenstern was idle and willing, was big 
 and always well dressed, was useful to do the hard 
 
CHAPTER FOURTEEN 
 
 work of arranging an entertainment once it had been 
 planned. And his noisy convulsions flattered those 
 unaccustomed to having their jokes appreciated. 
 
 Frothingham's cold stare did not disturb Blicken- 
 stern, born insensible to mental temperatures. He 
 posed for a moment to give Frothingham a chance to 
 admire his fashionable array of new light grey frock 
 suit, white spats, orchid in buttonhole, and dark red 
 tie; then he dropped upon the lounge with the good- 
 natured, slightly condescending greeting he gave men 
 when he had money in his pockets. He explained 
 that he had come the night before in a private car with 
 a party of distinguished New Yorkers who had to 
 testify before a Senate committee. " And, do you 
 know," said he his English was idiomatic American 
 and almost without accent, " the first person I ran into 
 was that Italian scalawag, Rontivogli." 
 
 Frothingham's eyeglass glistened; otherwise he did 
 not change expression. " D' you know 'im? ' : he 
 asked languidly. " What '11 you drink? " 
 
 " Brandy and soda," replied Blickenstern. " Know 
 'im? Rather! I'm responsible for him in this coun 
 try. He landed without a friend and the people he 
 had letters to shut the door in his face they don't 
 
 [229] 
 
GOLDEN FLEECE 
 
 fancy Italians in New York. I introduced him round 
 and got him in everywhere. And, by gad, he not only 
 refused to pay a note he gave me, but when I met him 
 here last night he stared at me as if he'd never seen me 
 before." 
 
 "Rough, wasn't it?" 
 
 Blickenstern laughed cheerfully, without a trace of 
 irritation. Insults did not disturb him ; he had killed 
 one man and had wounded several in duels, but he 
 fought only because it was the " proper thing for a 
 gentleman " and respect-inspiring in certain coun 
 tries and in certain circumstances. " I'm off for home 
 next week," he said, " never to return to this bounder- 
 land. I think, just before I go, I'll get the face value 
 of that note and interest and not in money, either." 
 
 Blickenstern had several drinks " on " Fro thing- 
 ham half a dozen in as rapid succession as Frothing- 
 ham could induce. But he refused to disclose his pro 
 posed revenge, only chuckled, " I'll bet the dago '11 
 leave on the first steamer after I sail." 
 
 Frothingham got Boughton to attempt Blicken 
 stern, and Boughton not only tried it himself, but 
 also put at work a friend of his in the German Em 
 bassy. Blickenstern, however, would not go beyond 
 
77Z give the guinea one more chance' 
 
CHAPTER FOURTEEN 
 
 wagging his big blond head and saying, " Wait ! I 
 don't want to spoil the fun." The military attache at 
 the German Embassy was with him when he met Ron- 
 tivogli again. " I'll give the guinea one more chance," 
 said he, overflowing with good-nature as always when 
 he had drunk to excess. It was the office of the Shore- 
 ham, and Rontivogli was on his way out ; Blickenstern 
 bore down upon him, caught him by the lapel. 
 
 " I'm giving you your last chance, Cosimo," he 
 said. " You'd better pay up." 
 
 " If you don't take your hands off" me," exclaimed 
 Rontivogli in French, " I'll have you put into the 
 street." The look in his black eyes suggested the glit 
 ter of a stiletto. 
 
 Blickenstern shook him gently. " If you don't pay 
 that note," he replied with unruffled good nature, " I'll 
 publish it and the contract also. I'm leaving the coun 
 try, and don't care what they think of me here. But 
 you I hear you're about to marry ? " 
 
 Rontivogli grew yellow under the bronze of his 
 clear, pale skin. " I tell you, I can't pay the note. 
 You know it. You drove me out of New York with 
 your dogging and dunning me. In a few weeks I can 
 pay, and will." 
 
 [231] 
 
GOLDEN FLEECE 
 
 " Yes when you're married." Blickenstern 
 laughed loudly and not hollowly here was a joke he 
 could see. " What do you think I am an imbecile ? 
 Don't I know that as soon as you're married you can 
 snap your fingers and will ? " 
 
 Rontivogli disengaged himself and readjusted his 
 close-fitting coat. " I'm certain you will not lay your 
 self liable to arrest for blackmail," he said with calm 
 contempt, and went on to his carriage. 
 
 Blickenstern looked after him, nodding and laugh 
 ing. " Just wait ! " he said, addressing his fellow- 
 German, and including the curious loungers in the 
 office. 
 
 Frothingham searched for Blickenstern he had a 
 vague idea of taking him to call at the Popes'. But he 
 could not find him. He did see Rontivogli, however 
 one glance was enough to tell him that Blick- 
 enstern's threats had devoured his high spirits and 
 were eating into his courage. He waited impatiently 
 for the explosion a five-days' wait, for it did not 
 come until the following Tuesday. That morning, 
 as Hutt went out of his bedroom after fixing his bath, 
 Joe Wallingford called from their common sitting 
 room: 
 
CHAPTER FOURTEEN 
 
 " You're awake, aren't you? ' ! 
 
 " Almost," answered Frothingham. 
 
 " Then just read that." He flung a newspaper 
 through the crack in Frothingham's door onto his 
 bed. 
 
 Frothingham took the paper and instantly caught 
 the names of Rontivogli and Blickenstern in the larg 
 est headlines. He began eagerly upon a three-column 
 article, the most of it under a New York date line. 
 
 " Ain't that cruel? " caUed Wallingford. " Ain't 
 it a soaker ? " 
 
 " Um," replied Frothingham, too busy to pause. 
 
 It was an account of a suit brought by Blicken 
 stern against Rontivogli to collect a note for twenty- 
 five hundred dollars. The " sensation " lay in a docu 
 ment which Blickenstern had attached to the note and 
 had filed with the papers in the suit a contract, read 
 ing: 
 
 I, Cosimo di Rontivogli, hereby agree to pay Count Eitel zu 
 Blickenstern twenty-five hundred dollars as soon as he has intro 
 duced me to the persons whose names are written upon the back 
 of this contract in my handwriting. And I further agree to pay 
 him an additional twenty-five hundred dollars within one month 
 after I become engaged to an American lady, whether or not I 
 am introduced to her by him. And I further agree to pay him 
 an additional ten thousand dollars within three months after my 
 
 [233] 
 
GOLDEN FLEECE 
 
 marriage with an American lady, whether or not he introduced 
 me to her. 
 
 (Signed) COSIMO DI RONTIVOGLI. 
 
 This contract, the newspaper said, was in Ronti- 
 vogli's autograph, and was witnessed by two clerks at 
 the Holland House ; on the back of the contract, and 
 also in Rontivogli's autograph, were the names of 
 fifteen fashionable and rich New York women. Froth- 
 ingham glanced at the names he knew the bearers of 
 most of them and hastened on into Blickenstern's 
 interview. " In Europe," he had said to the reporter, 
 " I should call the fellow out and kill him. Here, 
 where the duel does not exist, I must take the only re 
 dress open to me for his betrayal of my friendship. 
 I asked him to pay only the note. In fact he owes me 
 five thousand, as he is now engaged to a Washington 
 heiress. He is a black rascal. If you will send to 
 Milan you can get a fine tale of how he happened to 
 come to your country. I owe all my American friends 
 an apology for introducing him. I confess with 
 shame that but for me he would have known no one." 
 
 The article went on with an account of Rontivogli's 
 engagement to " Miss Elsie Pope, one of the best 
 known young women in Washington, Philadelphia, 
 
CHAPTER FOURTEEN 
 
 and New York society, the only daughter of Senator 
 John C. Pope, reputed to be the third richest man in 
 the Millionaires' Club, as the Senate is called." Then 
 followed Rontivogli's sweeping denial, and his denun 
 ciation of the Prussian as a " blackmailer," a " notori 
 ous card-sharp," a " thorough scoundrel." 
 
 When Frothingham finished he said, " Gad, what 
 a facer for Miss Pope ! " 
 
 " Isn't it, though? " replied Wallingford. " And 
 for her father. I always blame the fathers." 
 
 " But I thought it was the mothers who hankered 
 after European marriages," said Frothingham. 
 
 " That's what is usually said," Wallingford an 
 swered, " because only the mothers appear in the pub 
 lic part of the business. But who gives up the money 
 for the settlements ? The women ain't a nose ahead of 
 the men in the race of snobbishness. Poor little Elsie 
 Pope! This ought to be a lesson to our girls 
 against " 
 
 He paused abrubtly and reddened, though Froth 
 ingham could not see him. " I almost forgot that 
 Frothingham's one of 'em," he said to himself. 
 
 Frothingham was grinning in the seclusion of his 
 
 bedroom. " I should say so ! " he exclaimed in his 
 
 [235] 
 
GOLDEN FLEECE 
 
 drawling, satirical voice. " Wonder what the Milan 
 yarn is ? >! 
 
 He learned in a few hours, for the Washington 
 afternoon papers had a long Associated Press despatch 
 from Milan. Rontivogli, heavily in debt and ruined, 
 had been backed by a syndicate of his creditors for an 
 American tour in search of an heiress. They had 
 risked in the venture forty thousand lire and, within a 
 month, an additional twenty thousand. They re 
 garded it as a by no means desperate investment for 
 the recovery of the very large sum which Rontivogli 
 had got out of them before they discovered his finan 
 cial plight certainly with such a title and so much 
 personal beauty and charm he could win the daugh 
 ter of one of the multitude of rich men among those 
 title-crazy American vulgarians. The Milan despatch 
 set forth that the correspondent had had no difficulty 
 in getting the facts, as " everyone here knows the 
 story. The formation of such syndicates is said to 
 be common in England, France, Germany, Austria, 
 and Italy, and many of them have been successful." 
 
 " Poor Frothingham ! " Wallingford thought as he 
 read. " This is bad for his business. I fancy it '11 be 
 many a day before I see my thousand again." And 
 
 [236] 
 
CHAPTER FOURTEEN 
 
 then he delicately gave Frothingham a hint that if he 
 needed another thousand he could have it. But Froth 
 ingham didn't need it just then and, it should be set 
 down to his credit, he would have hesitated long before 
 taking it, had he needed it. Wallingford was not 
 wrong in thinking there had been since he met 
 Frothingham a marked decline in his " honour as a 
 gentleman," and a marked rise in his " honour as 
 
 a man." 
 
 Rontivogli went to the Popes' at eleven o'clock that 
 morning. The look of the flunky who opened the door 
 foreshadowed to him his fate. He was shown not 
 into the drawing room, but into a reception room 
 a small alcove to the left of the door, intended for 
 wraps rather than for callers. The servant returned 
 with a package on his tray. " Miss Pope is not at 
 'ome," he said haughtily, omitting the customary 
 " Your 'Ighness," and not even substituting so much 
 as a " Sir " for it, " and she left this to be given to 
 you." 
 
 Rontivogli ignored the impudences of omitting his 
 title and of addressing him as " you," and took the 
 package. The servant held aside the portiere with 
 the broadest possible hint in his face and manner. 
 
GOLDEN FLEECE 
 
 " Tell Senator Pope that the Prince di Rontivogli 
 wishes to see him," said Rontivogli in a tone which at 
 once reduced the servant, in spite of himself, from a 
 human being to a mechanical device for the transmis 
 sion of messages. 
 
 When he hesitatingly withdrew Rontivogli opened 
 the package his ring with the stone unset and loose 
 in the box. He solved the puzzle almost as soon as it 
 was presented to him. He scowled, then gave a short, 
 sneering laugh, put the lid on the box, and thrust it 
 into the tail pocket of his frock coat. 
 
 Senator Pope received him in his study, rising and 
 bowing without advancing or extending his hand. 
 He was serious, but bland he did not know how to be 
 brusque, or even unkind in manner ; he did know how 
 to be diplomatic. 
 
 " I have come, sir, to repel the lies of that infamous 
 Prussian," began Rontivogli with suppressed passion. 
 
 " You will, I trust, not distress me with the painful 
 subject," said Pope slowly and gently. " We know 
 that the Count has maligned you. But you, as a gen 
 tleman, must appreciate how terrible the notoriety is 
 to us all. I assume that you have come to relieve the 
 young lady of the embarrassment of the situation." 
 
 [238] 
 
CHAPTER FOURTEEN 
 
 Rontivogli lost control of himself, raved, paced the 
 floor, pleaded, denounced, threatened even. But Pope, 
 sympathetic and in the proper places tenderly sorrow 
 ful, pressed in upon the Prince his and Elsie's un 
 changeable determination. At last Rontivogli gave 
 up the useless battle and drew the box from his pocket. 
 " Your daughter," he said, " sent me by a servant 
 this broken ring. The stone has been removed and 
 to my astonishment I find that a false emerald has been 
 substituted." His voice and manner were apologetic, 
 deprecatory, as if Senator Pope owed him an explana 
 tion which he was loath to demand. 
 
 He opened the box and exhibited its contents to 
 Pope, who looked with polite interest. " The stone 
 has become detached," was all he said. 
 
 " But why was it not returned to me ? " asked Ron 
 tivogli. " Why this false emerald in its place? " 
 
 " It is the same stone," said Pope. His tone was 
 absent, as if he were thinking of something else. 
 
 " It is not ! " Rontivogli's voice was bold and hard, 
 a covert threat in it. 
 
 They looked each the other straight in the eyes 
 Pope inquiringly, the Prince defiantly. Then Pope 
 said : " Ah ! Excuse me one moment." 
 
 [239] 
 
GOLDEN FLEECE 
 
 He left the room, muttering as he reached the hall, 
 " The miserable swindler ! He knows we won't have 
 any further scandal, no matter what it costs." When 
 he returned he had in his hand the emerald he and 
 Elsie had bought at Tiffany's. He laid it on the cor 
 ner of the desk nearest the nobleman. 
 
 " This is a genuine emerald," he said, his voice 
 neither hot nor cold. " You may take it if you 
 like." 
 
 " I thank you," replied the nobleman with a slight 
 bow of acknowledgment, as if a wrong to him had 
 been righted. 
 
 He put the emerald and the ring in his waistcoat 
 pocket; he put the box, with the false emerald in it, 
 on the corner of the desk exactly where Senator Pope 
 had laid the genuine stone. Then he went on, in a 
 way that was the perfection of courtesy : " May I pre 
 sume further on your kindness ? This German cur has 
 placed me in a distressing position. I wish to leave 
 America at once, to return where a gentleman can 
 not be thus attacked without defence. Unfortu 
 nately " He hesitated with a fine affectation of 
 
 delicacy. 
 
 Senator Pope's eyes were more disagreeable to look 
 
 [240] 
 
CHAPTER FOURTEEN 
 
 at than any human being had ever before seen them. 
 " I shall be glad to give you any reasonable assist 
 ance," he said with resolute self-control. 
 
 " You are most kind ! " Rontivogli was almost ef 
 fusive. " I shall return any advance you may make 
 as soon as I am at home." 
 
 " How much? " asked Pope with a trace of im 
 patience. 
 
 " I have many obligations which must be settled be 
 fore I leave. I had just cabled for a remittance, but 
 I wish to go before it can arrive. Might I trouble you 
 for an advance of, perhaps, five thousand I think 
 that will be enough." 
 
 Senator Pope unlocked and opened a drawer, took 
 out a flat package of bills. " Here is a thousand dol 
 lars," he said. " I cannot advance you more. And I 
 trust you will sail the day after to-morrow." He 
 looked hard at the Prince. " That will spare me the 
 necessity of making a private appeal to the Italian 
 Embassy through our State Department." 
 
 " You are most kind, mon cher Senator," replied 
 Rontivogli. 
 
 He put the package of bills in the inside pocket of 
 his coat. He reflected a few seconds, then took his top 
 
GOLDEN FLEECE 
 
 hat. " Will you do me the honour of presenting my 
 compliments and regrets to Madame Pope and to 
 Mademoiselle? " he said with steady eyes and elabo 
 rate politeness. " I thank you again. I regret that 
 we part in circumstances so unhappy. I shall send 
 your little advance within the month." 
 
 He bowed profoundly, and Senator Pope inclined 
 his head. He went to the door, turned there, bowed 
 again. " Au revoir, my dear Senator," he said cor 
 dially, and was gone a fascinating patrician figure 
 of handsome ease and dignity. 
 
XV 
 
 FROTHINGHAM let three days pass, and on 
 the fourth called at Senator Pope's. Elsie was 
 in Philadelphia was visiting an aunt. It had 
 not occurred to him that she would run away and hide 
 herself, so little did he think of the matter in any 
 other light than that of a game between himself and 
 Rontivogli. He was much upset, and did not know 
 what move to make next. Fate helped him the even 
 ing of the same day the mail brought a note from 
 Elsie: 
 
 MY DEAR FRIEND: 
 
 I can't help writing to thank you. You warned me, and you 
 were good and kind about it, and I was very disagreeable. I 
 should like to say so to you, but I don't suppose you'll be in 
 Philadelphia, will you ? And it will be many a day before I see 
 Washington. Indeed, I hope I shall never see it again. I didn't 
 deserve your friendship. E. W. P. 
 
 Frothingham had not reflected on this letter long 
 before he was telling Hutt to get his belongings to 
 gether. The next afternoon found him at the Belle- 
 vue in Philadelphia, and a few hours later he was din- 
 
 [243] 
 
GOLDEN FLEECE 
 
 ing at the Hopkins' with Elsie and her uncle and 
 aunt. He liked the Hopkinses stiff and shy, but 
 kindly. He liked the dark furniture, and walls and 
 woodwork, suggesting old English; liked the faces in 
 the family portraits English faces; liked surround 
 ings where there was nothing new or new-fashioned 
 except his own and Elsie's dress, where there was so 
 much that was fine as well as old. And he had never 
 liked Elsie so well as now that she was chastened into 
 an appealing gentleness and humility. 
 
 He saw that he had been right in thinking her note 
 an apology, and an attempt to recall him. And when 
 the Hopkinses left them alone in the parlour after 
 dinner he soon said : " I've come for an answer to that 
 question I asked you down by the monument." 
 
 She hung her head and flushed deeply. " Oh, I 
 wish to get away from all this," she said in a low 
 voice. " I'll be glad to go far away far as as you 
 care to take me." 
 
 He sat beside her and took her hand. But he made 
 no effort to show " temperament." " I'll go back to 
 Washington and see your father to-morrow if you 
 wish," he said, after a silence. 
 
 " Yes," she replied. 
 
CHAPTER FIFTEEN 
 
 She wrote a long letter to her father as soon as 
 Frothingham was gone her maid posted it at mid 
 night. So it came to pass that Senator Pope was ex 
 pecting him. He received him with the benign court 
 esy he gave to the humblest negro. He liked Froth 
 ingham but, for that matter, it was impossible for 
 him to dislike any member of the human race, even 
 Rontivogli, or any well-disposed domestic animal ; ever 
 since he had " gathered his bunch," his content and 
 complacence had, with a few brief pauses, been bub 
 bling over in words and acts of kindness. But when 
 Frothingham said, " I've come to see you, sir, about 
 something of which I and your daughter have been 
 talking," his face clouded with a look of apologetic 
 distress almost the same look as that with which 
 he had received Rontivogli for the final inter 
 view. 
 
 Frothingham would not have attributed it to em 
 barrassment had he known Senator Pope better. It 
 was the look he wore whenever the exigencies of fate 
 forced him to do anything unpleasant whether to 
 refuse a small favour, or to cut a rival's throat, or to 
 scuttle a financial or political ship. For, being a good 
 man, and a lover of smoothness, it pained him exceed- 
 
GOLDEN FLEECE 
 
 ingly to cause his fellow-beings any other emotion 
 than happiness. In the present instance the cause of 
 his distress was the discovery that an alliance with no 
 bility would destroy his chances for the Vice-Presiden 
 tial nomination which he was plotting to get. He had 
 not confided his ambition to his closest political lieu 
 tenant. But when Rontivogli was exposed and cast 
 out, his colleague and boss had said to him : " I'm 
 glad to hear you're not going to take a foreign 
 nobleman into your family, Senator. Until the en 
 gagement was announced we were hoping you could 
 be induced to make the race for the Vice-Presidency. 
 While an Italian wouldn't have been as bad as an 
 Englishman on account of the Irish vote, I don't think 
 the party would have stood for even an Italian. The 
 people don't like that sort of thing." 
 
 That settled Senator Pope's aristocratic ambi 
 tions. 
 
 " I've come, sir," Frothingham was saying, " to ask 
 your consent to marrying your daughter." 
 
 Senator Pope's eyes swam, so strong was his emo 
 tion. " I am highly honoured, Lord Frothingham. 
 But I cannot give you an answer in so important a 
 matter at once. I must consult with her mother." 
 
CHAPTER FIFTEEN 
 Mrs. Pope was a shadowy nonentity, flitting nervously 
 in the wake of father and daughter. 
 
 He detained Frothingham for a long talk on Eng 
 land and America, and sent him away in an almost 
 jubilant mood no applicant ever left him downcast. 
 The next day Frothingham got a telegram from Elsie 
 asking him to come to her as soon as he could. He 
 assumed that her father had decided to convey his con 
 sent through her, and his spirits rose higher. But the 
 first glimpse of her disturbed him hers was not the 
 face of a bearer of good news. 
 
 " I saw your father," he began. 
 
 " Yes," she interrupted. " He has written me." 
 
 " Does he consent? " 
 
 " Yes and no." She hesitated. " He asked me not 
 to tell, but I know I can trust you. He has been plan 
 ning to be nominated for Vice-President. And he has 
 found that he can't have the nomination if I marry a 
 titled foreigner especially an Englishman, because 
 of the Irish. They say it would kill the ticket." 
 
 Frothingham retreated behind a vacant look. 
 
 " He found it out only a few days ago." She did 
 not feel equal to telling him that her father had 
 learned this fatal fact through the exposure of Ron- 
 
 [247] 
 
GOLDEN FLEECE 
 
 tivogli. " So," she ended, " we couldn't marry until 
 after the election. For he says he's sure of the nom 
 ination." 
 
 " And when is this election ? " 
 
 " A year from next fall." 
 
 Fortunately Frothingham had not the habit of let 
 ting his face speak for him. After a pause he said: 
 " But surely you can persuade him." 
 
 " It's useless to try. You don't know him as I do. 
 He seems yielding, and usually he is. But where he's 
 set he's hard as granite." 
 
 " Nearly two years," he repeated. And to himself : 
 " Impossible ! I might weather six months, but two 
 years the creditors would laugh at me." 
 
 " And I wish to go away at once," she said with a 
 long sigh, looking at him mournfully. 
 
 " I we can't wait two years," he replied. 
 
 " We needn't, need we? We might " she be 
 gan, then halted, blushing vividly. 
 
 He pretended not to understand though he did, 
 for he had already thought of that plan. 
 
 " You know I'm of age," she went on, seeing that 
 he was not going to help her out. " We we needn't 
 wait for his consent." He did not change expression, 
 
 [248] 
 
CHAPTER FIFTEEN 
 
 but he was saying to himself, " Here's a mess. She's 
 so mad to get away that she's ready to do anything." 
 
 " I think he'd forgive us," she went on. " But even 
 if he didn't, I'd never regret." 
 
 He knew that he must say something, must say it 
 quickly, and that it must be appreciative but noncom 
 mittal. " I couldn't accept such a sacrifice," he said. 
 " It wouldn't be decent to take advantage of you in 
 that fashion. I know it sounds unromantic to say it, 
 but, by Jove, I don't go in for the sort of romance that 
 makes a fellow a blackguard." And he frankly told 
 enough of his financial difficulties to make the situation 
 clear to her. " I believe you can talk your father 
 round," he ended. " He thinks the world of you." 
 
 Elsie smiled melancholy and cynical. " Yes so 
 long as I don't interfere. But I know how he feels 
 about the Vice-Presidency. And that that other 
 affair has made him " She shook her head. 
 
 This chilled Frothingham. " He'd never forgive 
 her if she ran off with me and lost him the office," he 
 reflected. " Besides, I can't afford to go in without 
 settlements arranged beforehand. I must chuck it 
 quick as ever I can." 
 
 He urged persuading her father, and she promised 
 
GOLDEN FLEECE 
 
 to try. He saw her the next day, and the next, both 
 afternoons and evenings. On the third day he did not 
 see her until late in the afternoon her father had 
 come from Washington, and had spent the morning 
 with her. And while they were talking Frothingham 
 was reading a letter from Honoria which had been 
 languidly pursuing him for a week. Part of it was : 
 
 I think you met Cecilia Allerton in Boston. Had you heard 
 of her bolting with Frank Mortimer ? 
 
 " Frank Mortimer ! " he exclaimed, sitting upright 
 in bed in his astonishment. " That brute with the 
 big teeth and the empty head ! " 
 
 Her father was angry with her for something or other and 
 Created her cruelly. Everyone was pitying her. Frank fell in 
 love with her out of sympathy, and she was so miserable that, 
 when her father wouldn't consent, she ran off with him. Mr. 
 Allerton has changed his will, they say, leaving everything to 
 colleges and charities. But Frank has an income and will have 
 more when his uncle dies, and she has a rich aunt who loathes 
 her father, and so may leave her something. 
 
 Cecilia's quite mad about Frank, now that they're married. 
 Willie Kennefick was dining with us last night. He says she was 
 in love with Stanley Huddiford, who died a year or so ago. He 
 says she believes Stanley's soul has entered into Frank ! She's a 
 clever girl, they say, but a bit eccentric, like so many of them 
 down Boston way 
 
 Frothingham looked on this news as a direct, provi- 
 
 [250] 
 
CHAPTER FIFTEEN 
 
 dential warning to him. " I'll take no risks with 
 Pope," he said. " It would be sheer madness." 
 
 And before he left his rooms he wrote to Barney, 
 fixing the next day but one for his arrival at Chicago. 
 He felt that there was no hope of winning Pope at 
 least not at present. " If she by chance succeeds after 
 I'm gone and I'll leave her in a good humour I can 
 easily return. But I know there's nothing in it." 
 
 Failure was mourning in her eyes when he called at 
 five o'clock. They went for a walk, and in reluctant 
 words she told him that her father was immovable, that 
 their only choice was between disobeying him and 
 breaking the engagement. She listened coldly while 
 he explained his position again ; when he had finished 
 she sneered. " You are unanswerable," she said bit 
 terly. 
 
 " No doubt I do lack * temperament,' " he drawled, 
 an ironic gleam on his eyeglass. 
 
 She was humble at once. " Oh I understand," she 
 answered. 
 
 But she was too heartsick to talk; and he forgot 
 that he was walking with her, could only feel ruin's 
 arm linked firmly in his. It was dusk when they 
 reached the house. 
 
 [251] 
 
GOLDEN FLEECE 
 
 In the doorway he took her hand and held it. 
 
 " I shall see you when I return ? " he asked. " Will 
 you answer if I write now and then ? " 
 
 " Yes," she replied gratefully. 
 
 She sent away the servant who came at her ring. 
 She detained Frothingham, hoping against reason and 
 instinct that he would tear off that tranquil mask of 
 his, would forget his responsibilities as the bearer of a 
 proud and ancient name, would say : " I care for only 
 you. Come ! " Even after he had left her she lin 
 gered, holding the door ajar, listening for returning 
 footsteps. At last she shut the door, and went for 
 lornly and wearily to her great, lonely, sombre dress 
 ing room. She stood before the mirror of her dress 
 ing table, studying her plain, wistful, woeful little 
 face. " You aren't pretty," she said to it, with that 
 candour which has its chance in those rare moments 
 when vanity is quite downcast. " And one can't ex 
 pect much when men think of nothing but looks in a 
 woman." She could no longer see herself for tears. 
 " And I believe he'd have been at least kind to 
 me." 
 
 She rang for her maid, and began listlessly and 
 mechanically to dress for dinner. 
 
XVI 
 
 A 1 Chicago Barney came down the platform to 
 meet Frothingham. " Here you are ! " he ex 
 claimed. " Six months in the country, but not 
 a bit changed. And if an American goes over to your 
 side and stays a week he has to learn the language all 
 over again when he gets back." 
 
 It was still daylight, and Barney told his coachman 
 to drive home by way of " the store " the great 
 " Barney and Company Emporium seventy stores 
 and a bank, three restaurants, a nursery, and an emer 
 gency hospital, all under one roof." Frothingham 
 watched the throngs pouring torrent-like through the 
 canons made by the towering buildings. " Don't it 
 remind you of New York ? " asked Barney. 
 
 " Yes and no," he replied. It seemed to him in 
 the comparison that New York was a titanic triumph, 
 Chicago a titanic struggle ; New York a finished or at 
 least definite creation, Chicago a chaos in convulsion. 
 There was in the look and the noise of it an indefinable 
 
 [253] 
 
GOLDEN FLEECE 
 
 menace which oppressed him, filled him with vague un 
 easiness. When Barney told him the site of it was a 
 swamp a few years before, he thought of a fairy story 
 his nurse had told him of a magic city that used to 
 rise from an enchanted morass at dusk, live a single 
 night, and vanish with the dawn. And as the day 
 light waned, he wondered whether this inchoate, vol 
 canic unreality of a city would not soon be again en 
 gulfed in the bosom of its mother, the swamp. But 
 he began to note here and there traces of form, civil 
 ised form, peering from the chaos to indicate the 
 trend of the convulsion that it was upward, not 
 downward. 
 
 " It is tremendous," said Frothingham. " Is it 
 bigger than New York?" 
 
 " No," Barney reluctantly answered. Then he 
 added with curious, defiant energy : " But it will be ! 
 And it's American, which New York ain't. It's full of 
 people that think for themselves, and do as they 
 
 d n please. We ain't got many apes out here. 
 
 We run more to humans." 
 
 They were now driving past Barney and Company's 
 a barrack-like structure, towering story on story 
 
 from a huge base bounded by four streets, where 
 
 [254] 
 
CHAPTER SIXTEEN 
 
 surged a seemingly insane confusion of men, women, 
 children, horses, vans, automobiles, articulate in the 
 demoniac voices of boys shrieking extras and drivers 
 bawling oaths. And the sky blackened suddenly, and 
 from the direction of the lake came a storm, cruelly 
 cold, bitter as hate, seizing the struggling, swearing, 
 shouting mass of men and animals, lashing it with 
 whips of icy rain, and pelting it with bullets of hail. 
 
 " That's my little place," said Barney, pride ooz 
 ing through his offhand tone. 
 
 " It's tremendous," was all Frothingham could say. 
 The " Emporium " and its surroundings dazed him. 
 He muttered under his breath, " And it's Hell." 
 
 Barney told the story of creation as it read for him. 
 He had been a drummer for a suspender house 
 eighteen hundred a year for touring the cities and 
 towns of northern Indiana and Illinois; four thou 
 sand dollars put by after twelve years of toil; eyes 
 ever alert for a chance to go into business on his own 
 account. One of his towns was Terre Haute he called 
 it Terry Hut. In it was a dry-goods shop kept by a 
 man named Meakim. Barney found that of all the re 
 tailers he visited, Meakim was by far the shrewdest, 
 the most energetic, and, above all, that he had an 
 
 [255] 
 
GOLDEN FLEECE 
 
 amazing talent for " dressing " his show windows and 
 show cases. He persuaded Meakim to sell out and ad 
 venture Chicago with him. They set up in a small 
 way, and in an obscure corner. But both toiled ; Bar 
 ney was shrewd and almost sleepless, and Meakim 
 " dressed " the windows and displayed the goods on 
 and over the counters. They prospered, spread too 
 rapidly for their capital, failed, gathered themselves 
 together, prospered again. " I've built three stores 
 in fourteen years," said Barney. " This last one was 
 finished only five years ago the year Meakim died. 
 And already it's too small we're moving our whole 
 sale department to another building." 
 
 Presently they were in Michigan Avenue and at 
 Barney's house. It was a mass of Indiana limestone 
 which he with the assistance of a builder, audaciously 
 " branched out " as an architect had fashioned into 
 a fantastic combination of German mediaeval fortress 
 and Italian renaissance villa. " Here's where I live," 
 said Barney as the carriage stopped before the huge 
 doors studded with enormous bronze nails. " And 
 don't you dare back up Nelly when she jeers about it. 
 She says she can't look at it without laughing, or come 
 into it without blushing. I suppose it is no good, in 
 
 [256] 
 
CHAPTER SIXTEEN 
 
 the way of art. But it keeps out the rain, and that's 
 the main point in a house, ain't it? ' ! 
 
 As he was getting out his keys the door was 
 opened by a maid in a black dress, a white apron and 
 cap. " Jessie," said he, in a tone which suggested that 
 she might be his daughter, " this is the Earl of Froth- 
 ingham, and I want you to take good care of him, 
 and of the young man who's coming with his trunks." 
 
 Frothingham took off his hat and bowed vaguely 
 to the maid, who smiled cordially. " I'll show you 
 your room," she said. 
 
 " Never mind, Jessie," interrupted Barney. " You 
 needn't bother. I'll take him up myself. But I 
 know everything's all right Nelly looked after that." 
 
 Frothingham was impressed by the astonishing dif 
 ference between the exterior and the interior of the 
 house. He felt at home at once in this interior hand 
 some, cheerful, the absurd splendours of the architect- 
 builder's devising softened into comfort and good 
 taste. " We thought you'd like your young man 
 near you," explained Barney, " so we put a bed in the 
 dressing room." 
 
 " Thank you," replied Frothingham. " This is 
 charming." 
 
 [257] 
 
GOLDEN FLEECE 
 
 " Nelly knows her business." Barney's good- 
 natured face, with its many dignifying scars from his 
 wars with destiny, beamed paternal enthusiasm. " You 
 needn't dress for dinner unless you want to," he went 
 on. " I never do unless we have company or I go out 
 somewhere to something swell and formal. Wickham 
 sometimes does and sometimes don't." 
 
 " I think I'll dress, if you don't mind," said Froth- 
 ingham diplomatically. 
 
 " Suit yourself. This is Liberty Hall. We ain't 
 got any rules." He looked at his watch. " That 
 clock on the mantel there is four minutes fast. It's 
 seven minutes to seven by the right time. We're hav 
 ing dinner at half -past seven, but you can come down 
 just as soon as you feel like it." 
 
 Frothingham descended at five minutes before the 
 dinner hour and found Nelly alone in the front par 
 lour. Superficially she was like the women he had met 
 in the Eastern cities. Like them she was dressed in a 
 gown obviously imported from Paris; like them she 
 wore it as only American and French women wear their 
 clothes. He saw instantly that she was a well-bred 
 girl of a most attractive American type. She was 
 
 tall and long of limb her arms were almost too long. 
 
 [258] 
 
T- 
 
 Found Nelly alone in the front parlour 
 
CHAPTER SIXTEEN 
 
 She had a great deal of dark brown hair shading 
 fascinatingly into black here and there. She had 
 dark eyes not brown, as he at first glance thought, 
 but dark grey a humour-loving mouth, a serious 
 brow, a clear, delicate, olive skin. As she and Froth- 
 ingham were shaking hands, her father and her 
 brother entered the brother, Wickham, a huge fel 
 low, topping his father by several inches and having 
 his father's keen, good-natured dark grey eyes and his 
 father's features, except that the outline was more 
 refined without being less strong. 
 
 Barney put his arm round his daughter and, with 
 a foolish-fond expression, said : " Didn't I tell you, 
 Frothingham? Wasn't I right? " 
 
 If Frothingham had been new to " the States " he 
 would have thought this the strongest kind of a bid 
 for him to enter the family. But he understood the 
 American character in its obvious phases now. " The 
 old chap's mad about her," was all Barney's speech 
 suggested to him. " And," he admitted to himself, 
 " I think he has reason to be. She's got the look I 
 like." He noted the humourous comment on her 
 father's flattery in Nelly's dark eyes, as he examined 
 her through his eyeglass with ostentatiously critical 
 
 [259] 
 
GOLDEN FLEECE 
 
 minuteness. " Quite up to the mark, I should say," 
 he replied with polite audacity, adding apologetically, 
 " though I don't pretend to be an expert." 
 
 " You see, I did put on my dress suit, after all," 
 said Barney, looking down at his old-fashioned, ill- 
 fitting evening clothes. " The children would have 
 it. I always feel like a stranded fish in these togs. 
 You see, I never wore 'em in my life till I was past 
 forty." 
 
 Wickham looked a little nervously at Frothingham ; 
 Nelly was smiling with frank amusement. Then 
 Wickham looked ashamed of himself but he care 
 fully observed the peculiar stripes down the legs of 
 Frothingham's trousers and the curious cut of his 
 waistcoat and coat " I must find out who's his tailor," 
 he thought. " Poole don't send me over the real 
 thing. I wish I dared wear a monocle. It's a whole 
 outfit of brains and manners by itself. I don't be 
 lieve he takes it out, even at night." 
 
 A maid announced dinner not " Dinner is served," 
 but " Dinner, Mr. Barney." And Barney jumped up 
 with, " I'm glad to hear it. I'm hungry as a wolf." 
 The dining room was done in old English fashion 
 
 and the dinner, too, though an American would have 
 
 [260] 
 
CHAPTER SIXTEEN 
 
 called it the American fashion. The feature of its 
 four courses was a huge roast, set before Barney on 
 a great platter, with a mighty carving knife like a 
 cimetar and a fork like a two-pronged spit. Barney 
 himself carved an energetic performance, lacking 
 in grace perhaps, but swift and sure. On the table 
 between him and the platter was a pile of plates. He 
 put a slice of the roast into the top plate and the 
 waitress removed it, carried it to Nelly's place and set 
 it down before her. This was repeated until all were 
 served. 
 
 Frothingham watched Barney's movements atten 
 tively, surprised that any of the American upper 
 classes condescended to eat in such simplicity. He 
 was almost startled when a bottle of wine was brought, 
 for he had not forgotten Barney's denunciation of 
 drink and drinkers. He had seen so many concessions 
 of real or reputed principle for his benefit since he 
 had been moving about in American " high life " that 
 he was somewhat cynical as to principle in America. 
 But he had not expected to find this degree, or even 
 kind, of weakness in Barney. " He told me he 
 wouldn't permit the stuff to come into his house," he 
 thought, laughing to himself. Then he noticed that 
 
 [261] 
 
GOLDEN FLEECE 
 
 none of the family drank it. One taste was enough 
 for him " No wonder he's opposed to wine," he said 
 to himself. Then aloud : " If you don't mind, I'll 
 just take whiskey a little Scotch." 
 
 Barney showed amused embarrassment; Nelly and 
 Wickham laughed. " We don't have anything to 
 drink," she explained. " Father doesn't approve. 
 But he told us you'd been brought up differently 
 that you must have wine. So we've got wine, but 
 there isn't any whiskey." 
 
 Frothingham looked vague he was relieved to find 
 that his friend Barney was not quite so weak as he had 
 feared. " It doesn't in the least matter," he replied. 
 " I shall get on famously with this." 
 
 " I'll take you down to the club after a while," said 
 Wickham, " and you can have all you want. And 
 to-morrow eh, father? " 
 
 " Yes yes of course," answered Barney. " I 
 never do try to put on style that I don't get 
 left." 
 
 He winked at one of the maids significantly, and 
 when she drew near and bent her head whispered to 
 her. She left the dining room ; in about five minutes 
 she reappeared with a decanter of Scotch whiskey, a 
 
CHAPTER SIXTEEN 
 
 tall glass, a bowl of ice, and a bottle of imported soda 
 on her tray. 
 
 " Why, father ! " exclaimed Nelly, " where did that 
 come from ? " 
 
 Barney beamed, triumphant. " We've got neigh 
 bours, haven't we? ' : 
 
 "But what will they think of you?" she asked, 
 pretending to be shocked. 
 
 " I don't know and I don't care," he answered. 
 " I never did spend much time in worrying about what 
 my neighbours thought of me. Probably that's why 
 we're here, and not in the poorhouse." 
 
 After dinner Frothingham stayed with Nelly in the 
 parlour instead of going to the club with Wickham. 
 He had found many girls in America who thought 
 they were natural or who affected naturalness as a 
 pose: but here was the first girl, it so happened, who 
 was really natural, without thinking anything about 
 it. She had all the charm of the girls of his own coun 
 try for him he liked ingenuousness ; and in addition 
 she had the charm of knowledge. She knew the world, 
 but she looked at it with ingenuous eyes and he 
 would not have believed this a possible combination. 
 " How do these Americans manage it? " he said to 
 
 [263] 
 
GOLDEN FLEECE 
 
 himself. " Her father comes from well down in the 
 lower classes, yet he has all the assurance of an aris 
 tocrat. And as for the girl, she reminds me of Evelyn 
 and Gwen." 
 
 " Do you know," he said to her, " you don't suggest 
 an American girl at all that is, you do and you don't. 
 You women over here are cleverer than ours, but a 
 good many of 'em lack a certain something a I 
 don't know just what to call it. It seems to me that 
 well, they are ladies, of course. But many of 'em 
 not all but a great many of those I've chanced to 
 meet make me feel as if they were not exactly sure 
 of themselves, as if they were trying to live up to 
 something they'd read about or seen somewhere. I 
 don't know that I make myself clear." 
 
 " Perfectly," replied Nelly. " You mean that they 
 act as if they weren't satisfied with being the kind of 
 lady they were born, and are trying to be some other 
 kind and don't succeed at it especially well." 
 
 " Exactly," said Frothingham. " I feel like say 
 ing to them, * Oh, come now, chuck it, won't you, and 
 let's see what you're really like.' But you you re 
 mind me of our women, except that they're so ghastly 
 dull the most of 'em. Gad, they sit about in the 
 
 [264] 
 
CHAPTER SIXTEEN 
 
 country until they're feeble-minded. After a certain 
 age, about all there is left of 'em is the match-making 
 instinct. You'd understand if you'd been over there." 
 
 " I have been there," answered Nelly. " I spent 
 more than a year in Europe nearly half of it in your 
 country. I liked it, but well, one likes one's own 
 country best, of course." 
 
 " I thought you American women preferred the 
 other side." 
 
 " Oh, a few of us do those who aren't happy un 
 less they have somebody bowing and scraping to them 
 or are bowing and scraping to somebody. You know, 
 the poor we have always with us the poor in spirit 
 as well as the other kind of poor." 
 
 Before they had talked an hour Frothingham felt 
 that the outlook for his campaign in the Barney house 
 was not promising. Nelly was frank and friendly, 
 and he saw that she liked him. But there was some 
 thing in her atmosphere which made him know that 
 she cared little for the things which were everything 
 to him and which must be everything to the woman he 
 might hope to win. He feared that she was not for 
 him. " She ain't in my class or perhaps I'd better 
 say, I ain't in hers." 
 
 [265] 
 
GOLDEN FLEECE 
 
 When Wickham came, at half -past ten, she left 
 them. After suppressing yawns for fifteen minutes 
 he said : " I'm off to bed. I was at a dance last night 
 and owe myself five hours sleep. You see, father and 
 I get up at half-past six. We have to be at the store 
 at eight." 
 
 At the store ! At eight ! " And he hasn't in the 
 least the look of that sort of chap," thought Froth- 
 ingham. As for rising at half-past six, one might do 
 it to hunt or shoot. But to do it morning after morn 
 ing " merely to set a lot of bounders to selling a lot 
 of cloth " preposterous ! 
 
 1 266 ] 
 
XVII 
 
 ATER a few days of Chicago Frothingham 
 felt utterly out of place. There were no 
 idlers, no idling places. To idle meant to sit 
 in lonely boredom. 
 
 Barney and his son were busy all day they 
 grudged the half-hour of that precious time of theirs 
 which they spent at luncheon. Nelly, too, had her 
 work some sort of a school she was running, away off 
 somewhere in the poorer part of the town. He was 
 sensitive enough soon to discover, in spite of her cour 
 tesy, that he was interrupting her routine seriously and 
 was in the way to becoming a burden. He saw as much 
 of her as he dared she had for him a charm that be 
 came the more difficult to resist as his hope of winning 
 her decreased. He relieved her of himself during her 
 busy hours so tactfully that she did not suspect him 
 of penetrating what she honestly tried to conceal. 
 
 He betook himself to the club. It was usually de 
 serted ; if a man did enter, he raced through and away 
 as if pursued by demons; at luncheon all ate as if 
 
 [267] 
 
GOLDEN FLEECE 
 
 struggling for a prize offered to him who should chew 
 the least, swallow the fastest, and finish the soonest. 
 He called on the women he met they were out or just 
 going out, or just coming in to busy themselves at 
 home. 
 
 In New York, Boston, Washington he had thought 
 the leisure class a lame imitation of the European 
 class of industrious, experienced idlers, had found it 
 small and peculiarly unsatisfactory because its men 
 were inferior to its women in numbers and especially 
 in brains. But here there wasn't a pretence of a 
 leisure class except the loungers in the parks; and 
 they were threatening, so it was said, to organize and 
 do all sorts of dreadful things if they weren't given 
 something to do. " This is a howling wilderness," he 
 said to himself. " I should be better off in a desert. 
 These lunatics make my head swim." 
 
 Wherever he went, all seemed possessed of and pur 
 sued by fever-demons. If it was a dinner, the diners 
 were eager to despatch it. The courses were served 
 swiftly, the waiters snatching one's plate if he for a 
 second ceased the machine-like lifting of food; the 
 conversation was nervous and in the shrill tones of 
 acute mental excitement. Words were cut short and 
 
 [268] 
 
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN 
 
 slapped together almost incoherently. Sentences were 
 left unfinished, the speaker leaping on to another sen 
 tence or submerged by the breaking of the flimsy 
 speech-dam of the person he was addressing. Often 
 all were talking at the same time. " Surely you can 
 listen as you talk," said a woman to whom he com 
 plained. " Think how much time it saves ! " 
 
 If it was a dance, the orchestra detonated the notes 
 like cartridges from a Maxim gun ; the dancers whirled 
 or raced furiously. " Why this hurry ? " he gasped 
 to a handsome, powerful girl, who had dragged him 
 round a ballroom twice, had flung him into a chair, 
 and was dashing away with another man to finish the 
 waltz. 
 
 " I've got to catch the train for the millennium," 
 she screamed back over her shoulder and disappeared 
 in the maelstrom. 
 
 Even at the play the audience shuffled uneasily while 
 the players sped through their lines or the orchestra 
 rattled off the between-the-acts music ; and afterward 
 all rushed from the theatre as if it were afire. The 
 blank expression habitual to Frothingham's face was 
 now less a disguise than a reflection of his internal 
 state. 
 
 [269] 
 
GOLDEN FLEECE 
 
 " I must get out of this," he said to himself at the 
 end of two weeks. " The disease may be catching. 
 Now I understand that fellow who went from here to 
 tear London up by the roots and put in his tuppenny 
 tubes. A Chicagoan should be barred from a country 
 like any other plague." And he wrote his sister that 
 he was " beginning to twitch with the Chicago dis 
 
 ease." 
 
 Evelyn had written him regularly a letter by each 
 Wednesday's steamer. She had put a brave face 
 upon their affairs, had tried to make him picture life 
 at Beauvais House as smooth, almost happy. But 
 he had more than suspected that a far different story 
 ran between the lines; and when she wrote that she 
 had engaged herself to Charley Sidney he under 
 stood. 
 
 Seven months before he would have grumbled and 
 cursed, and would have accepted the sacrifice. Now, 
 it roused in him a fierce protest, a feeling of abhor 
 rence of which he would not have been capable before 
 he visited America and the Barneys. " She sha'n't 
 sell herself to that creeping cad," he said, and on im 
 pulse he cabled : " Sidney impossible and unnecessary. 
 You must break it. Answer." 
 
 [270] 
 
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN 
 
 The answer came a few hours later : " Shall do as 
 you wish." 
 
 Instead of being relieved he repented his impulse, 
 wondered where it had come from, fell into a profound 
 depression. Seven months of stalking; nothing to 
 show for it but three ridiculous, sickening misses. 
 And here he was with an empty bag; and what little 
 heart he once had for the game was gone ; in its place 
 a disgust for it and for himself. " How Nelly Bar 
 ney would scorn me if she knew what a creature I am," 
 he said. He was now thinking a great deal on the 
 subject of Nelly Barney's standards for men and also 
 on the subject of Nelly Barney as a standard for 
 women. In neither direction did he find any encour 
 agement. He knew her through being in the same 
 house with her day after day, through seeing her at 
 all hours and in all moods and she never made the 
 slightest attempt to conceal her real self. He felt 
 that such a woman could not be attracted by his title, 
 would not be likely to be attracted by himself ; he felt 
 that she was at the same time more worth the winning 
 than any other woman he knew in America " Yes, 
 or in England," he confessed at last. 
 
 "What a pity, what a beastly, frightful shame," 
 
 [271] 
 
GOLDEN FLEECE 
 
 he thought. " She's got everything that I must have, 
 and everything that I want, too." 
 
 But he had only twelve hundred dollars left, includ 
 ing the thousand from Wallingford. " I must be 
 gone clean mad," he exclaimed whenever he wasn't 
 with her and was alone with his affairs. Finally he 
 was able to goad himself into dashing feverishly about 
 in Chicago society. He sought the set she avoided 
 it was to him an additional charm in her that she did 
 avoid it, for he had at bottom the extra-prim ideas 
 of women which have never lost their hold upon Eng 
 lishmen. There was, however, no alternative to seek 
 ing this set. He thought it the only one in which he 
 was likely to succeed those among the fashionable 
 young women of the rich families who carried the 
 " free and easy '" pose in speech and manner to the 
 point where it looked far worse to a foreigner than it 
 really was, who laughed and talked noisily in public, 
 who wore very loud and very clinging dresses, very 
 big hats and very tight shoes. 
 
 The newspapers gave him columns of free advertis 
 ing and, with the Barneys vouching for him and 
 " Wick " Barney pushing him, he immediately became 
 a figure. Some of the young women of the " lively ' ! 
 
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN 
 
 set pursued him with an ardour which he would have 
 mistaken when he first landed for evidence of serious 
 attachment or intentions. But he had learned some 
 thing of the ways of American flirts, married and 
 single, and he had had experience of that American 
 curiosity as to foreigners of rank which he had at first 
 regarded as the frankest kind of title-worship. 
 
 Presently he found a girl he thought he could not 
 be mistaken in fancying he could get Jane or Jenny 
 (Jeanne, she wrote it) Hooper, the daughter of that 
 famous Amzi Hooper whose " Hooper's High-class 
 Hams " and " Hooper's Excelsior Dressed Beef and 
 Beef Extract " are trumpeted from newspaper, bill 
 board, and blank wall throughout the land. 
 
 Her older sister had married a Papal duke under 
 the impression that he was a noble of ancient and 
 proud family. To her horror, to her family's humil 
 iation, and to her friends' hilarity, it came out that 
 the Duke of Valdonomia was the son of a Swiss hog- 
 packer of as humble origin as Amzi Hooper and of less 
 than one-fifth his wealth. The family longed to pos 
 sess a genuine nobleman, and Jane, a devourer of the 
 English novels which are written by the middle 
 classes for the middle classes about the upper classes 
 
GOLDEN FLEECE 
 
 seemed to be in sympathy with her father's and 
 mother's ambition and keenly eager to become a " real 
 lady." It was assumed by her set that Frothingham 
 had come for her the newspapers hinted as much 
 several times each week. 
 
 But Frothingham, grown extraordinarily sensitive, 
 shied at the amazing high heels on which she tottered 
 like a cripple, at the skin-like fit of her clothes, at the 
 suspicious brilliance of her cheeks and blackness of 
 her brows and lashes. Whenever she spoke to him 
 suddenly in her shrill dialect he felt as if a file had 
 been drawn across his pneumogastric nerve. And 
 she constantly used a slang expression which seemed 
 to him in her the essence of vulgarity. She could 
 not speak ten sentences without saying that she or 
 somebody or everybody had nearly or quite " thrown 
 a fit." 
 
 It struck him as a biting irony of fate that the 
 woman whom of all he knew well in America he least 
 approved should be the one who was frankly throwing 
 herself at his head in his hour of desperation. When 
 he learned that her father was an Englishman born 
 and bred in the " lower middle class," he felt that he 
 had solved the problem of the family's over-eager- 
 
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN 
 
 ness to get him. " That's why the old beggar almost 
 cringes as he talks to me," he said to himself. 
 
 " D n their impudence ! " And the next time he 
 
 met Hooper he treated him not as an American and 
 an equal, but as an Englishman and an inferior. And 
 Amzi at once fell into his " place," just as a car horse, 
 though elevated to be a coach horse, will halt at one 
 ring of a bell. " It's in the blood," thought Froth- 
 ingham. " It can't be hid or got out." But he 
 didn't venture the experiment with the daughter. 
 
 The climax came one morning when he met her by 
 chance in the Lake Park Drive. She was perched 
 high on a red and black dog-cart in which she was 
 driving a bay and a gray tandem. Her hat was the 
 biggest he had seen her wear, and she was swathed 
 in a silver-grey dust-coat with a red embroidered col 
 lar. She stopped and invited him to join her. 
 
 " I needed you to complete my turnout," she said, 
 when they were under way. Her dazzling smile took 
 part of the edge off her unconscious insolence or 
 was it conscious? He found her a puzzle, with her 
 flashes of good taste and flashes of good sense, with 
 her wit that seemed accidental and her folly that 
 seemed her real self. 
 
 [275] 
 
GOLDEN FLEECE 
 
 He set his teeth and tried to think only of how much 
 " I need her to complete my turnout," and of how 
 pretty she was for there was no denying her beauty, 
 or her style for that matter, in spite of its efflo 
 rescence. He saw that everyone was looking at them, 
 but he did not appreciate that his own striking cos 
 tume and his eyeglass were as magnetic as were her 
 hat, her bright skin, and her dust-coat with its gaudy 
 collar. She was supremely happy. The most con 
 spicuous girl in Chicago, driving with the most con 
 spicuous man, in the most conspicuous trap and on 
 the most conspicuous highway what more could a 
 young woman ask? 
 
 " Wonder why everyone stares so ? " she said with 
 deliberate intent to provide an opening for compli 
 ment. She wished to hear him say the flattering 
 things she was thinking about herself. 
 
 " I fancy they're staring at what I can't take my 
 eyes off of," he replied. " You do look swift this 
 morning." 
 
 " Swift ! I don't like that." She was frowning. 
 " You Englishmen come over here and think you can 
 say what you please." 
 
 " I can't see where's the harm in telling a girl 
 
 [276] 
 
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN 
 
 she's pretty and well got up, and looks a stun 
 
 ner." 
 
 " That isn't what ' swift ' means in Chicago." 
 
 " Really ! You don't say ! That's what it means 
 in London." 
 
 " But you're not in London." 
 
 " No." His tone strongly suggested a wish that 
 he were. 
 
 "Wouldn't it be jolly if this were Hyde Park!" 
 she exclaimed. 
 
 He did not show enthusiasm at this but then his 
 face was made to suppress, not to express, emotion. 
 
 " I simply adore London," she went on. 
 
 " It ain't bad for a while, now and then." 
 
 " There's so much atmosphere about London I 
 don't mean the fog and soot. Here, they're all crazy 
 about making money and working and all those kind 
 of things. Whereas, over there, everybody's for hav 
 ing a good time and all those kind of things. Some 
 times I think I'll throw a fit if I don't get away from 
 here." 
 
 He looked gloom, then brightened yes, she was 
 tremendously pretty, and her mouth was like a red- 
 ripe cherry ; yes, she might be toned down into a fairly 
 
GOLDEN FLEECE 
 
 decent countess. " They're quick to adapt them 
 selves, these American girls. The minute she sees 
 Evelyn she'll begin to learn." 
 
 " I don't see how you stand it," she continued. 
 " When are you going away ? Not that I sha'n't be 
 sorry you've been awfully nice to me, and I like to 
 see a really well-dressed man once in a while." 
 
 " Ah, I don't mind it here." He paused for fully a 
 minute, then said : " And I'd like it, you know, if I 
 could take you with me when I go." He followed 
 this speech with a slow turning of the head until his 
 eyeglass was full upon her. " By Jove, her colour's 
 genuine," he said to himself. 
 
 She had been happy a few minutes before; now 
 she was all thrills and palings and flushings of ecstacy. 
 She glanced at her conquest with sparkling eyes and 
 laughing lips. . She made him forget what " bad 
 form " he had been thinking her. " Is that a joke? " 
 she asked, as if she were assuming that it was. 
 
 " We don't go in for joking about that sort of 
 thing where I come from," he drawled. 
 
 " But you oughtn't to have said it here." She 
 was radiant, but her hands were trembling it seemed 
 
 most romantic to her, quite like a chapter out of a 
 
 [278] 
 
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN 
 
 novel. Nobility and titles and genuine aristocracy, 
 that not only recognised itself, but also was recognised 
 as aristocracy by everybody, seemed to her as dream 
 like as fairyland. " And he does so look the part ! " 
 . she said to herself. " Anyone could see that he is the 
 real thing." 
 
 " If you'll drive home I'll ask you again there," 
 he continued. 
 
 And he did, and she accepted him ; and he was half 
 way to Barney's before he came from the spell of her 
 fresh young beauty and her frank admiration of him, 
 and began to think of Nelly and to see Jeanne from 
 Nelly's standpoint again. At that moment Jeanne 
 was busily telephoning her engagement to her inti 
 mates, her head full of castles and coronets and crests 
 and peeresses' robes. It seemed to her that she could 
 not wait to begin her triumph the congratulations of 
 friends, the receptions, dinners, dances in honour of 
 her and her fiance, the flare of newspaper brasses, the 
 big wedding, and the crescendo of her gorgeous entry 
 into English society as Countess of Frothingham. Cin 
 derella was no more enraptured when the prince lifted 
 her from the ashes than was Jenny Hooper with her 
 ill-fed and exuberant imagination, her ill-directed 
 
 [279] 
 
GOLDEN FLEECE 
 
 and energetic ambition, her ill-informed and earnest 
 conception of " being somebody." 
 
 " And he's coming to see you to-morrow, pa," she 
 said to Amzi Hooper, after delighting his ears with 
 the great news. " He says your consent is necessary 
 before the engagement's announced." 
 
 " I guess he and I won't quarrel over it, Jenny," re 
 plied her father. " If he suits you, I can stand him." 
 
 Frothingham came the next afternoon and made 
 his formal request. Mr. Hooper shook hands with 
 him cordially. " I guess my girl knows what she's 
 about," said he. " I'm pleased to have you as a son." 
 
 " Thanks," replied Frothingham he could not al 
 together banish from his manner the instinctive 
 haughtiness of English upper class toward English 
 lower class. " When could you receive my representa 
 tive? Or shall I send him to someone who represents 
 you?" 
 
 Mr. Hooper looked embarrassed and rubbed his jaw 
 bone vigorously with his thumb and forefinger. 
 " Yes yes certainly any time you say. I'll talk 
 to him, myself. Can he come to-morrow? I don't 
 think it '11 take him long to satisfy me you're all 
 
 right." 
 
 [280] 
 
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN 
 
 Frothingham stared, thinking " D n his impu 
 dence ! " He said only, " To-morrow, at eleven, 
 then," shook hands as warmly as he thought wise, 
 and went back to the parlour where Jeanne was wait 
 ing for him. 
 
 Frothingham's " representative " was Lawrence, 
 attorney to the British Consulate at Chicago, a 
 brother of Gerald Boughton's mother. He had 
 come to America thirty years before because he 
 could make a living here and could not make a 
 living at home. He had renounced allegiance to the 
 British throne because by doing so his income was 
 doubled. But at heart he regarded himself as a Brit 
 ish subject and, while he pretended to be an American, 
 was so savagely critical of things American that 
 everyone disliked him. He wore the long, slim side- 
 whiskers which were the fashion when he left home; 
 he talked with the lisp then affected as the " hall 
 mark " of a gentleman. He disliked Americans ; he 
 despised Anglo-Americans of the Hooper type; 
 Hooper himself he loathed as an intolerable upstart, 
 successful where he, of the " upper class," was barely 
 able to keep chin above water. 
 
 [281] 
 
GOLDEN FLEECE 
 
 When he came into Hooper's study at the hour fixed 
 by Frothingham he was an accurate representation of 
 the supercilious, frozen-faced " swell " of the Picca 
 dilly district a quarter of a century before. Hooper 
 knew that he was of the " upper class," but had not 
 the faintest deference for him. Hooper had been 
 Americanised to the extent of caring nothing for 
 mere family. It took a title to stir his dormant in 
 stincts of servility ; the untitled Lawrence was a man 
 to be judged by American standards, as he understood 
 them. Lawrence was not a millionaire and not on the 
 way toward that goal of every rational ambition; 
 Hooper, therefore, had no more respect for him than 
 he had for any other " failure." 
 
 " You've come to explain about the Earl of Froth 
 ingham," began Hooper in the arrogant voice he used 
 at business. " But it's not necessary. I'm well in 
 formed as to Lord Frothingham's family and am satis 
 fied he's what he represents himself to be." 
 
 Lawrence combed his long lean " Dundrearys " with 
 his slim white fingers. The joy of battle gleamed 
 in his eyes. " I can't imagine," he replied he had 
 a broad accent and drawl, said " cawn't " and 
 " fawncy " " why you should fancy I came here to 
 
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN 
 
 insult Lord Frothingham, whose representative I have 
 the honour to be." 
 
 "Insult? What do you mean, Mr. Lawrence?" 
 demanded Hooper, his voice courageous, but not his 
 eyes. 
 
 Lawrence felt he had been right in thinking that 
 no American would negotiate for the purchase of a 
 title unless he were at bottom a " grovelling snob." 
 " There could not be a question of Lord Frothing- 
 ham's character," he said. " And as for his family, 
 there's none more illustrious in England." 
 
 " Certainly, certainly. I admitted all that. I as 
 sumed that Lord Frothingham was sending you 
 through over-anxiety not unnatural when he's so far 
 from home." 
 
 " My business with you, Mr. Hooper," continued 
 Lawrence, " relates to settlements." Hooper's pre 
 tence " the shallow device of a bargain-hunter " 
 disgusted him. 
 
 Hooper waved his hand a broad, thick, stumpy- 
 fingered hand. " Oh, I've no doubt Lord Frothing 
 ham will do the right thing by my daughter. And 
 besides, I intend to do something for her no one ever 
 accused Amzi Hooper of stinginess." 
 
 [283] 
 
GOLDEN FLEECE 
 
 " That is gratifying," said Lawrence. " We shall 
 no doubt have not the slightest difficulty in reaching 
 an understanding. What, may I ask, is the aw 
 extent of the settlement you purpose to make upon 
 your daughter and and Lord Frothingham." 
 
 Hooper's face grew red. " You may ask, sir, but 
 I'll not answer. I'm not in the habit of discussing my 
 private affairs with awe/body." 
 
 Lawrence was angry also " the fellow's taking me 
 for a fool," he thought. But he knew he must control 
 himself, so he answered smoothly : " This is extraor 
 dinary most extraordinary, Mr. Hooper. You've 
 had some experience aw in foreign marriages " 
 
 Hooper dropped sullenly before this poisoned shaft. 
 
 " And," continued Lawrence, " you must know that 
 settlements are the matter of course." 
 
 " No, sir ! " exclaimed Hooper, pounding the desk, 
 " I know nothing of the sort. When my oldest daugh 
 ter married they talked to me about settlements, but I 
 refused to have anything to do with it." 
 
 Lawrence, in fact all Chicago, knew that Hooper, 
 who was not nearly so rich then, had settled a quarter 
 of a million upon the Papal nobleman and half a mill 
 ion on his daughter, and had engaged to settle a 
 
 [284] 
 
You may ASK, sir, but I'll not answer 9 
 
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN 
 
 quarter of a million more upon the first male child of 
 the marriage. " We should, of course, not be satis 
 fied with the settlements you made upon the Duke of 
 Valdonomia," said he, ignoring Hooper's falsehood. 
 
 Hooper winced, looked bluster, thought better of it, 
 said quietly : " You've been misinformed, Mr. Law 
 rence. I made no settlements. But I gave the young 
 people enough to set them up comfortably j" 
 
 " Lord Frothingham's position forbids him to con 
 sider any such arrangement as that, Mr. Hooper. 
 You know how it is with the great families. They 
 have station, rank, tradition to maintain. They " 
 
 " I won't bribe any man to marry my daughter. 
 That ain't the American way." This was said, not 
 fiercely, but, on the contrary, in a conciliatory tone 
 and manner. 
 
 Lawrence sneered inwardly at this " cheap clap 
 trap," and said : " That's sound and eminently 
 creditable to you, sir. But you will bear in mind that 
 Lord Frothingham is an English nobleman, the head 
 of a distinguished family, and that your daughter is 
 about to become his Countess, an Englishwoman, the 
 mother of a line of English noblemen. Do I make my 
 self clear? " 
 
 [285] 
 
GOLDEN FLEECE 
 
 " Perfectly. Perfectly. And I've not the least ob 
 jection to doing what's right. I want to make it clear 
 that I'm giving only out of generosity and affection, 
 and a desire to see my girl properly established." 
 
 " No one who knows you will doubt that," said 
 Lawrence so blandly that Hooper could find no 
 fault, could not understand why he was irritated. 
 " And now that we're on common ground I hope you'll 
 give me some aw data so that I may draw up the 
 necessary papers." 
 
 " Has Frothingham any debts ? '' asked Hooper 
 abruptly, after a thoughtful pause. 
 
 " There are about fifteen thousand pounds of per 
 sonal obligations," replied Lawrence carelessly, " and 
 a matter of perhaps a hundred thousand pounds as a 
 charge on the entailed estate. I understand the en 
 tailed part is all that's left ; but the estates can be, 
 should be, restored to what they were until a hundred 
 or a hundred and fifty years ago." 
 
 " Um ! " muttered Hooper. 
 
 " The debt represents, I believe," continued Law 
 rence, " the wild oats and careless management of 
 previous generations. The present Earl has been 
 remarkably steady, they tell me, considering his sta- 
 
 [286] 
 
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN 
 
 tion and opportunities, and the example of his father 
 and grandfather." 
 
 Hooper had read with an attention that made his 
 memory leechlike every word of every sketch of Froth- 
 in gham and the Gordon-Beauvais family in the Chi 
 cago papers. Lawrence's aristocratic allusions were, 
 therefore, full of suggestion and moved him pro 
 foundly. " Well," said he, " I should say, in round 
 numbers, that a million would straighten the 
 young man out and set them housekeeping in good 
 style." 
 
 There was a queer gleam in Lawrence's eyes as he 
 replied : " Very handsome, Mr. Hooper. Most satis 
 factory. Your daughter can take the position in Eng 
 land to which the Earl's rank entitles her." He 
 looked as if he were reflecting; then, as if thinking 
 aloud : " Let me see a million pounds five mill 
 
 ion " 
 
 Hooper sprang to his feet. " You misunderstood 
 me, Mr. Lawrence," he protested angrily, but nerv 
 ously. " My daughter will have that perhaps more 
 than that ultimately. But I meant dollars, not 
 pounds." 
 
 Lawrence put on a expression of amazement. " I 
 
 [287] 
 
GOLDEN FLEECE 
 
 beg your pardon, Mr. Hooper, but really really 
 you can't mean that. Two hundred thousand pounds 
 would barely fetch them even. They'd have nothing 
 to live on." 
 
 " Oh, of course I don't mean that I'd not give 'em 
 anything in addition. We were talking only of set 
 tlements." 
 
 " Certainly. And you must see, Mr. Hooper, that 
 it would be impossible for us to accept any settlement 
 so inadequate. Some misfortune might overtake you 
 and you would be unable to carry out your present 
 generous intentions." 
 
 " A million dollars is a big sum of money. It looks 
 even bigger in England than here." 
 
 " But you are making a great alliance. A million 
 dollars is a small sum in the circumstances I mean, 
 in view of the necessity of enabling your daughter to 
 take all that her position as Countess of Frothingham 
 entitles her to." 
 
 " Permit me to ask," said Hooper with some sar 
 casm, but not enough to conceal his anxiety, " what 
 did Lord Frothingham expect in the way of settle 
 ment ? " The multi-millionaire had developed two 
 powerful passions with age avarice and social ambi- 
 
 [288] 
 
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN 
 
 tion. These were now rending each the other and both 
 were rending him. 
 
 " Lord Frothingham, of course, did not discuss the 
 matter with me a gentleman is, naturally, delicate in 
 matters of money. He simply stated the posture of 
 his affairs and left me in full charge. When I sug 
 gested to him that eight hundred thousand pounds 
 would be adequate, he protested that that was too 
 much. * I wish Mr. Hooper to appreciate that it is 
 his daughter I want,' said he. * Make the least pos 
 sible conditions. I'd be glad to marry her without a 
 penny if my position permitted. It's hard to have to 
 consider such things at this time,' he said. * I'm sure 
 we can pull through with seven hundred thousand.' 
 I did not and do not agree with him, but I assented be 
 cause I knew that you would liberally supplement the 
 settlements." 
 
 Every sentence in that speech exasperated Mr. 
 Hooper perhaps Lawrence's persistence in express 
 ing himself in pounds instead of in dollars most of all. 
 Pounds made the huge sum demanded seem small, 
 made his resistance seem mean and vulgar. He re 
 flected for several minutes. " I won't do it ! " he said 
 
 in a sudden gust of temper. " Half that is my final 
 
 [289] 
 
GOLDEN FLEECE 
 
 figure. I'll settle the obligations the five hundred 
 and seventy thousand dollars and I'll entail five hun 
 dred thousand and give Jenny five hundred thousand 
 for her lifetime, it to go afterward to the younger 
 children." 
 
 Lawrence combed his whiskers with his fine fingers, 
 shaking his head slowly as he did so. " But, Mr. 
 Hooper " 
 
 " That's final," interrupted Hooper. " It's bad 
 enough it's shameful it's un-American, sir, to make 
 any settlement at all." 
 
 At " un-American " Lawrence took advantage of 
 the fact that Hooper was not looking at him to in 
 dulge in a glance of contemptuous amusement. " No 
 body but an American," he said to himself, " could 
 have dragged ' un-American ' into such a discussion 
 as this. The cad is dickering over his daughter like an 
 old-clothes dealer over a bag of rags." 
 
 Hooper was talking again talking loudly : " Not 
 
 a cent more ! Not a d n cent more ! If they need 
 
 more after they're married, let 'em come to me for it. 
 They'll get it. But I ain't fool enough to make 'em 
 independent of me. I ain't going to give 'em a chance 
 
 to forget the hand that feeds 'em. No, sir ; I want my 
 
 [290] 
 
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN 
 
 daughter to continue to love me and think of 
 
 me." 
 
 There was no affectation in Lawrence's astonish 
 ment at this view of affection and the way to keep it. 
 " Poor devil," he said to himself pityingly, " he's 
 been so perverted by his wealth that he actually doesn't 
 see he's taking the very course that '11 make his chil 
 dren hate him." But he ventured only, " I'm certain, 
 sir, from what I know of your daughter and Lord 
 Frothingham that money could have no influence with 
 them one way or the other." 
 
 Hooper smiled cynically. " It's human nature," he 
 said. " The hand that feeds is the hand that's licked. 
 I'll give 'em all they need whenever they need it. Do 
 you suppose I've no pride in my daughter, in seeing 
 that she makes a good appearance over there? But 
 a million and a half is my outside figure for settle 
 ments." 
 
 " Practically less than a hundred thousand over and 
 above the debts," replied Lawrence, irritatingly revert 
 ing to pounds. " That is, about four thousand a year 
 for them to live on." 
 
 " Forty to fifty thousand a year, including Jenny's 
 income," corrected Hooper, standing up for dollars. 
 
GOLDEN FLEECE 
 
 " And while I don't promise, still, if they behave, they 
 can count on as much more from me." 
 
 " Nine thousand a year," said Lawrence, translat 
 ing into pounds, " would hardly keep up Beauvais 
 Hall in a pinched fashion. It would leave nothing 
 for restoring the property; the Hall, for example, 
 needs fifty thousand pounds at once to restore it." 
 
 The reasonableness, the unanswerableness of this 
 presentation of the case exasperated Hooper. 
 " They'll have to look to me afterward for that," he 
 said angrily. " I've said my last word." 
 
 But Lawrence didn't believe him. He saw that, 
 though avarice was uppermost for the moment, the 
 " cad's craving " was a close second then there was 
 the daughter's aid. She would have something to say 
 to her father when she knew of the hitch in the nego 
 tiations. He rose. " There's nothing further at 
 present, Mr. Hooper. I shall be compelled strongly 
 to advise Lord Frothingham against going on and en 
 gaging himself. I cannot do otherwise, consistently 
 with my duty as the, as it were, guardian for the mo 
 ment of his dignity and the dignity of his house. It 
 may be that he will disregard my advice. But I don't 
 see how he can, careless in sordid things and impetu- 
 
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN 
 
 ous though he is. The prospect for an unhappy mar 
 riage would be too clear. Good-morning, sir." 
 
 Hooper shook hands with him lingeringly. Avarice 
 forbade him to speak. " The Earl will come to your 
 terms," it and shrewdness assured him. " If he don't 
 the deal is still open, anyhow." His parting words 
 were, " Give my regards to the young man. Tell him 
 we hope to see him as usual, no matter how this affair 
 comes out." 
 
 " The coarse brute," muttered Lawrence, as he stood 
 without the doors of the granite palace. " The soul 
 of a ham-seller, of a pig-sticker." And he took out 
 his handkerchief and affectedly wiped the hand which 
 Hooper had shaken. " Always a nasty business, this, 
 of American upstarts buying into our nobility. If 
 they weren't a lot of callous traders and money-grab 
 bers they couldn't do it. And they usually negotiate 
 at first hand, so that they can drive a closer bargain. 
 And their best society, too! Beastly country no 
 wonder the women want to be traded out of it into 
 civilisation." 
 
 [293] 
 
XVIII 
 
 THERE was a family council at the Hoopers' 
 after luncheon that day Mr. Hooper, his wife, 
 and Jeanne. The two women followed Hooper 
 from the dining room into his study, where he was 
 pulling sullenly at his cigar and awaiting the attack. 
 It was his wife who began : " Do you know why Lord 
 Frothingham sent word he couldn't come to lunch, 
 pa? Jenny here is worried about it." 
 
 Mr. Hooper grunted. Finally he said : " I'm will 
 ing to do anything in reason to please Jenny. I don't 
 approve of this title business. It ain't American. But 
 as long as the young fellow has turned her head I was 
 not disposed to stand in the way." He frowned 
 fiercely. " But I tell you flat, I won't be held up ! 
 And that fellow he sent here this morning was a plain 
 highwayman." 
 
 Mrs. Hooper and Jeanne looked significantly each 
 at the other they had had many talks about his grow 
 ing stinginess, and they suspected him at once. 
 
 " What did he want? " inquired Mrs. Hooper. 
 
 [294] 
 
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN 
 
 " I don't propose to talk this thing over before 
 Jenny. It's disgraceful that she should have gone 
 into such a business. It ain't right that she should 
 know about such things." 
 
 Jeanne's eyes filled with tears. " And I've told all 
 the girls ! " she exclaimed. " Everybody knows it. I 
 can't back out now. The whole town 'd be laughing at 
 us. I'd be ashamed ever to show my face in the street 
 again. You don't want to break my heart, do you, 
 pa?" 
 
 " You've made a sweet mess of it ! " snarled her 
 father. " You ought to have had better sense than to 
 have told anybody till the business side of it was set 
 tled. I warned your ma about that I knew what was 
 coming. Now, here you two 've gone and given him 
 the whip hand ! " 
 
 " She got at the telephone before she told me," said 
 Mrs. Hooper. 
 
 Neither she nor her husband suspected that Jeanne 
 had thought of just this emergency of a wrangle over 
 settlements and had decided that the best way to over 
 come her father's avarice was to put him in a posi 
 tion from which he could not recede. If Frothing- 
 ham had not insisted on liberal settlements she would 
 
 [295] 
 
GOLDEN FLEECE 
 
 have prompted him to it. She was no more eager than 
 was he to embark with small supplies in the hold when 
 it was possible to lay in supplies a plenty. And as her 
 father had acted all her life upon his principle of pa 
 ternal affection " The hand that feeds is the hand 
 that's licked " she saw no harm in guiding her con 
 duct toward, him by principles from the same prac 
 tical code. As she was about to engage in business, 
 wasn't it common sense to get as large a capital as she 
 could ? " We can't back out now," she repeated tear 
 fully, watching him shrewdly through her tears. 
 
 " A pretty mess ! " growled her father. But he was 
 not really offended, partly because he was fond of his 
 daughter and would have forgiven her almost any 
 thing, partly because he understood and sympathised 
 with her eagerness to proclaim her triumph, chiefly 
 because, now that he had thought it over, he was ready 
 to accept Frothingham's terms. " The hope of get 
 ting more and the need of it will keep 'em tame," he 
 reasoned. And he said, addressing the two women: 
 " When that Lawrence fellow comes again to-mor 
 row, as I'm dead sure he will, I'll close the matter. 
 But you two keep your hands off ! " 
 
 As soon as her father and mother were out of the 
 
 [296] 
 
A s soon as }ier father and mother were out 
 of the way 
 
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN 
 
 way Jennie went into the library and called up the 
 Barneys. " Is Lord Frothingham there? " she asked. 
 
 " I'll put you on the switch to his room," was the 
 reply. And presently a voice she recognised as Hutt's 
 said : " Who wishes to speak to 'Is Lordship ? " 
 
 " Say that Miss Hooper's at the telephone." 
 
 There was a pause, a murmur of voices she was 
 sure one of them was Frothingham's. "Then Hutt an 
 swered: "'Is Lordship hain't 'ere just now, ma'am. 
 Hany message, ma'am? " 
 
 She was trembling with alarm. " Just tell him that 
 I called up, and that I'd like to speak to him when he 
 comes in " this in a rather shaky voice, for a great 
 fear was gathering in around her, a fear that he had 
 become offended at her father's stinginess and barter 
 ing and bargaining, and had decided to withdraw. 
 
 She wandered uneasily from room to room. She sat 
 at the telephone several times once she had the re 
 ceiver off the hook before she changed her mind about 
 trying to reach him. She ordered her victoria and got 
 ready for the street, to drive about in the hope of acci 
 dentally meeting him. At the door she changed her 
 mind again. As she was turning back a boy came by, 
 shouting an extra " All about the Earl of Frothing- 
 
 [297] 
 
GOLDEN FLEECE 
 
 ham ! Big sensation ! " She saw that the boy knew 
 who she was, knew that she was supposed to be en 
 gaged to Frothingham, was clamouring in that neigh 
 bourhood because he thought sales would be briskest 
 there. She fled into the house but sent a servant out 
 by the basement way to buy the paper. 
 
 The headlines were large and black. Frothingham, 
 the story ran, had got into debt in England so deeply 
 that his creditors found he could not pay more than 
 a few pence in the pound; they had consulted as to 
 ways and means of recovering, had organised them 
 selves into a syndicate, had put up five thousand 
 pounds to " finance " him for a hunt for a rich wife 
 in America. " And," concluded the account, " this ex 
 posure comes barely in time to block his attempt to 
 marry the beautiful daughter of one of the richest 
 meat packers in Chicago, moving in our smartest 
 smart set." 
 
 She did not know that this tale was a deliberately 
 false diversion of the facts about a syndicated German 
 prince who had visited Chicago several years before 
 and had almost married there. The truth as to his 
 enterprise had just come out on the other side through 
 the collapse of the Rontivogli syndicate ; and the news- 
 
 [298] 
 
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN 
 
 paper, relying for immunity on Frothingham's alone- 
 ness, and on his well-understood mercenary designs, 
 had substituted his name for the German's. She read 
 and believed. She had known from the outset that his 
 main motive was money. But she had succeeded in 
 disguising this unsightly truth in the same flowers of 
 her crudely romantic imagination in which she dis 
 guised the truth as to her craving for a coronet. Now 
 it was as if the flowers had been torn away to the last 
 concealing petal and had left exposed things more 
 hideous than she thought were there. 
 
 She hid her face and cried a little " I despise him. 
 Besides, if I went on and married him, what would 
 people say ? " 
 
 It would have taken finer scales than those avail 
 able for weighing human motives to decide which of 
 the two reasons embodied in those two sentences was 
 the heavier. She dried her eyes and sat with her elbow 
 on the table and her chin in her hand. 
 
 " That's the best thing to do, every way I look at 
 it," she said aloud slowly at the end of half an hour's 
 thought. 
 
 She went to the telephone, called up the offices of the 
 Great Western and Southern Railway, asked and got 
 
 [299] 
 
GOLDEN FLEECE 
 
 the General Manager. " Is that you, Mr. Burster? 
 Is that you, Tom? Meet me in the parlours of the 
 Auditorium right way." And she rang off and tele 
 phoned to the stable for her victoria. 
 
 Ten minutes later she was driving down the avenue 
 in her largest, most beplumed black hat and a pale 
 blue carriage-coat that produced the wonted effect of 
 her public appearances Burster once said to her: 
 " Jeanne, you're the only thing on earth than can stop 
 traffic in the streets of Chicago. You can do in two 
 seconds more than a blizzard could do in a week." 
 
 She returned at half-past five. Her father and 
 mother were in the front sitting room upstairs, gloomy 
 as the lake in the dusk of a cloudy day. She entered, 
 whistling and tilting her big hat first over her right 
 eye, then over her left. " Don't look so cheerful," she 
 said, patting her mother on the cheek and pulling her 
 father's beard. 
 
 He tried to scowl, but it was a failure ; and his voice 
 was not in the least formidable as he said : " A pretty 
 mess you got yourself into, miss, with your telephon- 
 ing." 
 
 " What telephoning? " she asked with a start. 
 
 " Tattling your engagement." 
 
 [300] 
 
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN 
 
 " Oh ! " She threw herself into a chair and 
 laughed. 
 
 " Your father telephoned to Mr. Lawrence after he 
 left us " began her mother. 
 
 " What did you do that for, pa ? " she interrupted. 
 " He'll think we haven't any pride." 
 
 " You ungrateful, thoughtless child ! I did it for 
 your sake." 
 
 " What did Mr. Lawrence say ? " 
 
 Her father hesitated and his face showed how he 
 hated to inflict upon his daughter the pain he thought 
 his words would cause. " He said it was useless to con 
 tinue our discussion, as Lord Frothingham had defi 
 nitely and finally decided not to renew his proposal." 
 The old man's voice almost broke as he went on: 
 " Jenny, here's a note that came a few minutes ago 
 I think the address is in Frothingham's handwriting." 
 
 Neither he nor her mother dared to look at her as 
 she was hearing these awful disclosures of the downfall 
 of her hopes and the impending brutalities to her 
 pride and vanity. She picked up the note, opened it 
 slowly, read it a few polite formal sentences, setting 
 forth that he had " yielded to the insuperable ob 
 stacles interposed by your father." 
 
 [301] 
 
GOLDEN FLEECE 
 
 She dropped the sheet and pirouetted round the 
 room in and out between the chairs occupied by her 
 frightened parents they thought her suddenly gone 
 mad from the shock. " Who says I ain't the luckiest 
 girl on earth? " she exclaimed. 
 
 " What are you talking about, Jenny ? " demanded 
 her mother sharply. 
 
 " Why, I married Tom Burster half an hour ago. 
 He's putting the notices in all the papers for to-mor 
 row morning. Everybody '11 think I changed 
 my mind and shook Frothingham. And I did, 
 too!" 
 
 " Jenny ! " exclaimed her father. " Tom Burster ! " 
 
 " And he's coming here to dinner, if you don't ob 
 ject," she continued. " If you do, why I'll join him 
 and we'll go away and give you a chance to cool off." 
 She caught her father by the beard. " What do you 
 say, daddy? Say yes, or I'll pull." 
 
 " Yes," replied her father with a huge sigh of re 
 lief his daughter was contented; her and their van 
 ity would be spared; Tom Burster would not demand 
 or want a dower ; he was not only independent, but also 
 one of the most forward young " self-made " rich men 
 in Chicago. " You've got more sense than all the rest 
 
 [302] 
 
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN 
 
 of the family put together," he exclaimed proudly, 
 patting her on the head. 
 
 And in an absent, reflective tone she said : " I 
 always felt I'd have some use for Tom sooner or 
 later." 
 
 [ 303 ] 
 
XIX 
 
 FROTHINGHAM'S abrupt change of tactics 
 had been caused by a cablegram from Evelyn 
 which reached him at the Barneys' even as his 
 diplomatic agent was in the heat and toil of the nego 
 tiations with Amzi Hooper. It read : 
 
 Break off everything and return. Have written you New 
 York. Best possible news. Gwen sends love. 
 
 " Why didn't she say what it was ? " he wondered. 
 And he decided that it must be news of too private a 
 nature to be trusted to the telegraph station at Beau- 
 vais. Why had she written if he was to go at once? 
 " I suppose," he concluded, " she was afraid I 
 mightn't obey orders. ' Gwen sends love ' that 
 must mean that the news is about me and Gwen." 
 
 But he had no uplifting of spirits instead, he felt 
 a sense of impending misfortune. He called up Law- 
 ence's office and told one of the clerks that he wished 
 
 Lawrence to call him as soon as he came in. In a few 
 
 [304] 
 
CHAPTER NINETEEN 
 
 minutes Lawrence was relating over the wire the 
 favourable progress of the negotiation. 
 
 " It's off," said Frothingham. " I want nothing 
 more to do with it. I'm glad it's in good form for 
 the break. I can drop it decently." 
 
 This so delighted Lawrence that he laughed aloud. 
 " Hooper's certain to send for me," he said. " I'll 
 give him the shock of his life." 
 
 Frothingham cautioned him against any transgres 
 sion of the most courteous politeness, then went down 
 to luncheon with Nelly, alone. While she was talk 
 ing and he listening and looking, all in a flash he un 
 derstood why the " best possible news " from home 
 depressed him, why " Gwen sends love " did not elate 
 him. He asked Nelly to take him to her school. 
 
 " Oh. you wouldn't be interested," she said. 
 
 But he insisted, and they set out immediately after 
 luncheon. As they went in a street car she ex 
 plained her work: 
 
 When her mother lay dying she said to the man 
 beside whom she had worked for thirty-six years, 
 mostly cloud and rain : " Henry, I don't want a big, 
 showy monument over me. If you should do some 
 thing for me, build a school of some kind, a school 
 
 [305] 
 
GOLDEN FLEECE 
 
 where girls can be taught how to be useful wives 
 and mothers, instead of spending their whole lives 
 at learning." And Nelly's father had put by 
 money, a large sum each year, until his daughter's 
 education was finished. Then he had said to her, " I 
 want you to help me carry out your ma's memorial." 
 And he turned over to her a mass of plans and hints 
 and schemes which he had been accumulating for seven 
 years. " Get up a plan," he had said, " on the lines 
 your ma would have liked. It's a woman's work 
 it's your natural work. I'll supply the money." And 
 after two years' labour, one year of it abroad, she had 
 perfected a scheme for a great school where several 
 hundred girls could be instructed in all that a woman 
 as a woman should know housework, sewing, cooking, 
 shopping, marketing, the elements of business and of 
 art, the care of babies, the training and education of 
 children. And she had so planned it that the girls 
 could and should support themselves while they were 
 learning. 
 
 Frothingham did not take his eyes from her face 
 as she talked. She seemed to him the most wonderful, 
 the noblest human being in the world. " A fine, a 
 beautiful idea," he said. " But aren't you afraid of 
 
 [306] 
 
CHAPTER NINETEEN 
 
 spoiling those girls for workingmen's wives? You're 
 educating entirely too much in this country, I should 
 say, as it is. You're making the lower classes restless 
 and discontented. They'll pull everything down 
 about your ears the first thing you know." 
 
 Nelly smiled he saw that she was not seeing him 
 at all, was looking far, far past him. " I'm not 
 worrying about the consequences," she said. " If we 
 did that we should never move. You must remember 
 that we haven't any classes here, but are all of one 
 class we differ in degree, but not in kind. One 
 can't look into the future. I only know it was in 
 tended for the light to shine on the whole human race, 
 and that it's our duty to help all we can. And knowl 
 edge is light, and ignorance is darkness, isn't it ? I'm 
 not afraid of light, anywhere. Whether it's little or 
 much, it's better than darkness." 
 
 He looked at her strangely. " I had never thought 
 of that," he said in a low voice. Then, after a few 
 minutes : " How good you are ! I didn't know there 
 was anybody in the world like you. How generous of 
 you to give your, life to these people." 
 
 " No no ! " she protested. They were walking 
 now through a maze of homely streets lined with flat- 
 
 [307] 
 
 
GOLDEN FLEECE 
 
 houses large and small and odourous of strong-smelling 
 cookery, of decaying food, of stale whiskey and beer 
 - J a typical tenement district. " When I first began 
 on this scheme," she went on, " I thought as you do. 
 But I soon saw how false, how foolishly false, that 
 was. And if I had continued to think as at first, if 
 I had gone into the work to patronise and to feed 
 my vanity, I should have injured myself and all whom 
 I wished to help. I should have made a snob of my 
 self and parasites of them." 
 
 She paused and into her eyes came a look which 
 he thought " glorious." She went on : " But fortu 
 nately, I got the right sort of guidance from the very 
 start. And I discovered that I had more to learn than 
 these people. I was actually more ignorant than 
 they." She turned her face toward him. " Did you 
 ever think," she asked, " what would become of you 
 if you had all the props taken from under you, and 
 were cast upon the world and were forced to make the 
 fight alone without a penny or a friend or a relative 
 or any outside help of any kind ? ' : 
 
 "Thought of it? Well, rather!" he exclaimed. 
 "And I know what would happen to me jolly 
 
 quick ! " 
 
 [308] 
 
CHAPTER NINETEEN 
 
 " That was my first discovery about myself. I 
 found that I was in the world without any fit equip 
 ment to live. I found that if the props were taken 
 from under me I'd be no match for the working people, 
 that I'd perish or else have to live on the charity of 
 rich people by doing the sort of pottering work they 
 give the poor of their own class. And I said to my 
 self, ' You are a fine human being, aren't you to 
 pose as the superior of those who are independent and 
 self-respecting? You call them ignorant, yet they 
 are conforming to nature's laws and to the conditions 
 of life infinitely better than you, with your boasted 
 intelligence and your fancied refinement.' I saw that 
 I was not a real woman, as my mother had been, but 
 was only a parasite on the labour and the intelligence 
 of others." 
 
 " And what did you do ? " 
 
 " I went to school with my girls. And " Her 
 
 face lighted up with enthusiasm " oh, you don't 
 know what a a magnificent sensation it is to be 
 conscious that one can swim alone on the sea of life 
 without fear of drowning or of having to call for help. 
 You spoke as if I were giving these people something. 
 Why, I owe everything to them ! It is they who gave 
 
 [309] 
 
GOLDEN FLEECE 
 
 and are giving. And I am and always shall be in 
 their debt." 
 
 He tried to think of some satirical phrase with which 
 to lessen the impression what she had said was making 
 upon him. But he could only blink into the flooding 
 light which seemed to him to surround her and to 
 blaze upon his pettiness and worthlessness and the 
 tawdriness of all upon which his life had been based. 
 In his own country, in his surroundings of alternating 
 dulness and dissipation, his naturally good mind had 
 become a drowsy marsh with pale lights gleaming in 
 it occasionally here and there. Unconsciously, he had 
 been slowly rousing ever since he landed in New 
 York. 
 
 The people he had met were like enough to those he 
 had met at home, and also like enough to the people 
 of the real America from which they were offshoots, 
 to form for him a mental bridge on which he could 
 pass from his England of narrow and bigoted caste 
 to Nelly's America of alert and intelligent and self- 
 respecting, level-eyed humanity. And he was now 
 feeling in this restless Chicago the fierce impact of 
 energies and aspirations of which he had had no con 
 ception, of which he could never have a clear concep- 
 
 [310] 
 
CHAPTER NINETEEN 
 
 tion. Through the eyes of this earnest, unaffected 
 girl with her lived ideal of self-forgetfulness he had 
 been getting confused, dazzling glimpses of a new 
 world. 
 
 But he did clearly see and feel that he loved her. 
 And she now saw in his curiously changed face what 
 was in his mind. She looked away instantly her 
 expression was uneasy, almost frightened. " Here 
 we are at the school," she said nervously as they 
 turned a corner and came in sight of three great 
 buildings plain yet attractive which faced three 
 sides of a broad lawn in the centre of which a large 
 and artistic fountain was playing. 
 
 He never could give a clear account of that school. 
 He remembered the manager a Mr. Worthington, 
 with a strong and serious, yet anything but solemn 
 face, with rather homely features except a pair of ex 
 traordinary eyes. He remembered many classrooms 
 where all sorts of feminine enterprises were going for 
 ward with energetic informality. He remembered 
 many girls uncommonly clean, bright, well-dressed 
 girls with agreeable voices and manners. He remem 
 bered many smiles and other evidences of health and 
 
 spirits. He remembered many babies all in one big, 
 
 [311] 
 
GOLDEN FLEECE 
 
 sunny room, chirping and crowing and gurgling, bal 
 ancing on uncertain little lumps of feet or crawling 
 toilsomely. " Practice babies," Nelly called them, 
 and he thought, " If this is the way her girls succeed 
 with mere ' practice babies,' what won't they make of 
 their own?' ; Finally, he remembered Nelly. All 
 his other memories were a hazy background for her 
 tall, graceful figure and wonderful, luminous face. 
 Her he never forgot in the smallest detail of look or 
 gesture. 
 
 When they were once more in the street, walking 
 toward the car, he began abruptly : " I came over here 
 to America because I was ruined because we 
 were going to be sold up and chucked out in the 
 autumn. I came I'm ashamed to put it into words 
 I'd rather you'd imagine you can, easy enough. 
 It's often done and nothing's thought of it at least 
 on our side of the water. This morning in fact, 
 just before luncheon I got a cable from my sister. 
 Our luck has turned, and " 
 
 " I'm very glad," she murmured as he paused. 
 
 " I don't wish to go back," he went on impetuously, 
 his drawl gone. " I wish it's you I want. And I 
 ask you to give me a chance. I don't think I'm such 
 
 [312] 
 
CHAPTER NINETEEN 
 
 a frightfully bad sort, as men go. And while I ain't 
 fit for you to walk on, where's the man that is? And 
 perhaps if I were less fit I couldn't care for you all 
 the height from down where I am to up where you 
 
 are." 
 
 The storm which had burst from deep down within 
 him, deeper far than he thought his nature extended, 
 was so sweeping and whirling him that he could not 
 see her face distinctly. 
 
 When she spoke it was in a voice that took away 
 hope, but gently, soothing the wound it made. " I'm 
 sorry," she said, " and yet I'm not. No woman could 
 help being pleased to hear what you've said to me, 
 and hear it from such a man as you are. Oh, yes ! " 
 this in answer to his expression " for I've found out 
 what sort of man lives behind your look of irony and 
 indifference. A so much better man than he lets him 
 self know or show. And I understand how differ 
 ently you've been brought up, how different your sys 
 tem is from ours. But " 
 
 She hesitated, and somehow he felt that he must give 
 her sympathy instead of asking it. 
 
 " You remember, I told you that when I began with 
 
 the school I had the right sort of help ? ' J 
 
 [313] 
 
GOLDEN FLEECE 
 
 He looked away from her and it was black before 
 him for an instant. " That fairish chap with the 
 eyes Mr. Worthington ? " he asked, cutting his 
 words off sharp. 
 
 She nodded, her cheeks bright. " I simply couldn't 
 help it," she said. " He was what I longed to be. 
 And he didn't preach the things I believed in he just 
 lived them." 
 
 They were silent until they were in the car, then she 
 went on : "I don't want you to misunderstand. He 
 has never even looked what I'd like him to look and 
 say. I don't know whether he cares probably 
 not. Sometimes I think he cares only for his work, 
 and " 
 
 " He does care I saw it," interrupted Frothing- 
 ham, and then he was astonished at himself for being 
 so " ridiculously decent." 
 
 " I don't know," she said doubtfully. " Thank 
 you for saying so." She looked at him shyly. " You'll 
 think me queer for telling you about it when he has 
 said nothing to me." 
 
 " I understand why you tell me," Frothingham 
 answered. " It was like you." He smiled faintly, 
 his frequent, self -satirising smile. " Don't mind me. 
 
 [314] 
 
- 
 
 V 
 
 7 take to it like a duck to water 9 
 
CHAPTER NINETEEN 
 
 I'm used to bad luck. I take to it like a duck to 
 water." 
 
 Nelly's instinct told her that she had said enough, 
 and they rode in silence. When she spoke again 
 it was of the dance to which they were going that 
 night. An hour and a half later as they were sepa 
 rating for dinner he said earnestly : " Thank you for 
 what you said. And thank you even more for 
 what you didn't say." 
 
 [315] 
 
XX 
 
 ON the way to Mrs. Graf ton's ball that night 
 he sent Evelyn a cablegram asking her to cable 
 him 175 he needed to help him to pay Wal- 
 lingford and fixing the next day week for his sailing. 
 He might have sailed three days earlier, but he wished 
 to get her letter and so not carry an unsatisfied curi 
 osity on a six-days' voyage. 
 
 At the ball everyone was talking of the Frothing- 
 ham " exposure " and of Jenny Hooper's marriage. 
 The " exposure " had appeared in but two editions of 
 the "yellow" that invented it. "Wick" Barney 
 had seen it and had lost not a moment in forcing its 
 suppression and a denial and in warning the other 
 papers. He said nothing to Frothingham, and 
 Frothingham did not know of it then, or indeed until 
 several years had passed. But even if it had not been 
 suppressed and had been everywhere believed, Froth- 
 ingham's social position would not have suffered. His 
 title was genuine and his family and his position at 
 
 [316] 
 
CHAPTER TWENTY 
 
 home were of the best more, American fashionable 
 society never asks about upper class foreigners who 
 come to it for no apparent, or, rather, no avowed pur 
 pose. It expects them to be somewhat " queer " in 
 other respects. It assumes that they will be " queer " 
 in money matters. 
 
 Frothingham did, however, hear of Jenny's mar 
 riage heard of it from Jenny herself. At the Graf- 
 tons' the dressing rooms are at opposite ends of the 
 hall from which the grand stairway ascends to the 
 drawing room and the ballroom. It chanced that 
 Jenny and Frothingham came along this hall from the 
 dressing rooms at the same time and, to the delight 
 of the few guests and the many servants who wit 
 nessed, met at the foot of the stairway. As Frothing- 
 ham's face habitually expressed nothing beyond a sug 
 gestion that he had nothing to express, he and his 
 eyeglass withstood the shock admirably. Jenny had 
 intended to " cut him dead " the next time she saw him. 
 But as she tottered suddenly into his presence on her 
 monstrous tall heels she was not prepared for a course 
 so foreign to her nature as the cut direct. Before she 
 Joiew what she was doing or saying she had smiled and 
 nodded. She instantly shifted to a frown ; but it was 
 
 [317] 
 
GOLDEN FLEECE 
 
 too late Frothingham had spoken, had subdued her 
 with that " perfectly splendid, so aristocratic " mon 
 ocle of his. " What's the use of throwing a fit over a 
 thing that's past and done? " she reflected. " He's 
 all right in his way. And won't it give Tom and 
 everybody a jolt if we enter the ballroom together? " 
 
 Frothingham had called her " Miss Hooper." This 
 gave her the opening. " Miss Hooper ! " she said with 
 her jauntiest air. " That's ancient history. I ain't 
 been called that for ages and ages. Why, I'm an old 
 married woman for Chicago." 
 
 " Really," said he, thinking it " some stupid, silly 
 sell or other." He was hardly listening. He was more 
 interested in the rope of pearls and diamonds that 
 swung from her neck to far below her waist. The 
 pearls were large and were once perfect ; but each pearl 
 had been mutilated by having a diamond set in it a 
 very nightmare of sacrifice of beauty and taste in an 
 effort to make more expensive the most expensive. 
 
 " Yes, indeed truly. I'm Mrs. " She stopped 
 
 short and gave him a look of horror. 
 
 " Dear me ! " exclaimed Frothingham with satiric 
 sympathy. " Have you forgotten his name, or did 
 
 you forget to ask it? " 
 
 [318] 
 
CHAPTER TWENTY 
 
 " No but I never thought of it before thought 
 how it sounds. My, but it's awful ! I'd never in the 
 world have married him if I'd have pronounced it be 
 forehand. Mrs. Burster! Ain't that horrible? " 
 Frothingham had lifted " ain't " from the slough of 
 doubtful grammar to the pinnacle of fashion in fash 
 ionable Chicago. 
 
 " Oh, I don't know," he drawled, still imagining she 
 was jesting. " It might be worse, mightn't it, now? " 
 
 At this seeming impertinence her eyes flashed. 
 " Yes it might. It might be Bursted or ' Busted ' 
 mightn't it? " Then, seeing that her " shot " at 
 his financial condition as described in the newspaper 
 she had read and believed apparently did not touch 
 him, she relented and was in a good humour again. 
 " I've been engaged to Tom for a year or so on and 
 
 o o / 
 
 off," she went on. " When I woke up this morning it 
 came into my head to marry him. And I did it while 
 your lawyer and papa were squabbling." She said 
 this so convincingly that she herself began to feel that 
 it was " as good as true." 
 
 The news that she and Frothingham were advanc 
 ing together preceded them to the ballroom, but had 
 not spread far enough from its doors to impair the 
 
 [319] 
 
GOLDEN FLEECE 
 
 sensation made by their entrance with every appear 
 ance of friendliness. And the much discussed mystery 
 of that day's doings is here solved for the first 
 time. 
 
 The next afternoon Frothingham and Wickham 
 drove up to Barney's door as Nelly and Worthington 
 were arriving on foot. One glance at their faces and 
 he knew that they understood each the other now. 
 " All I accomplished," he said to himself mournfully, 
 " was to force the fellow to play his hand. What rip 
 ping luck I do bring other people ! " He paused 
 only long enough to make his passing on seem natural. 
 Presently she followed him to the library, where he 
 was standing on the rug before the closed fireplace 
 with a cigarette drooping dejectedly from the corner 
 of his mouth. She moved restlessly about the room, 
 evidently seeking a way to begin telling him some 
 thing. 
 
 " I saw it in your face at the door," he said, in 
 answer to an appealing glance from her. 
 
 She put her hand on his arm and her eyes were wist 
 ful. " I know you did, and I hoped I thought I 
 saw in your face that you were generous enough to be 
 glad I'm happy." 
 
 [320] 
 
CHAPTER TWENTY 
 
 " No, I can't say that you did. The most I can do 
 is to bear it without the grin." He seated himself 
 on the edge of the big table and smoked and looked 
 at her reflectively. " I say," he began at last, " do 
 you see how it's possible to be in love with two at the 
 same time? 5: 
 
 She nodded, smiling a little. " Yes I I think 
 if I hadn't met someone first I should have been in 
 love with someone else." 
 
 " That's something," he said in his satirical drawl. 
 But he kept his eyes down and his eyelids were trem 
 bling. " Do you know," he went on after a pause full 
 of cigarette smoke, " I've been thinking about car 
 ing for two people and that sort of thing. I don't 
 mind saying to you you'll understand, I'm sure 
 there's a girl over on the other side " 
 
 " I'm so glad ! " she exclaimed and then she 
 wasn't. 
 
 " I care for her in a different way, but it's quite a 
 real way. And when I go back home, it may be you 
 know what I wish to say. I'm telling you because I 
 don't wish you to think I'm disloyal to you " his ex 
 pression was half -satirical, half -mournful " or to her 
 either." 
 
GOLDEN FLEECE 
 
 " I appreciate your telling me," she said. " But 
 I'd have understood, if you hadn't. I believe I recog 
 nise a man when I see him, and you know that's what 
 I think you." 
 
 He shrugged his shoulders. " I dare say I'm much 
 like other people. I show everyone the side that 
 matches the side they show me." 
 
 After a moment he went to her and lifted her hand 
 and kissed it. She stood and turned her face, sweet 
 and friendly, up to him. " I'd rather you'd kiss 
 me," she said. 
 
 He winced and paled and let go her hand. " No, 
 thanks," he replied. " If you don't mind, I'd rather 
 not." 
 
 With this Mr. Barney bustled into the room no 
 one had ever seen him make a slow movement of any 
 kind. At sight of them standing thus suspiciously, he 
 halted and, as they flushed and moved apart, he 
 laughed in such a way that Nelly felt impelled to ex 
 plain : 
 
 " I was talking to Lord Frothingham of my en 
 gagement, and he was congratulating me." 
 
 " Bless my soul ! " ejaculated Barney. " This is 
 news ! " 
 
CHAPTER TWENTY 
 
 " I haven't had a chance to tell you, father. It's 
 Mr. Worthington." 
 
 Barney seemed depressed. " Well I guess he's all 
 right," he said slowly. " I've got nothing against 
 him. But " 
 
 " And," interrupted Nelly, afraid of her father's 
 frankness, " he was telling me of his engagement." 
 
 Barney looked at Frothingham sharply. " Amer 
 ican? " he asked, showing that he wouldn't like it if 
 he got an affirmative answer. 
 
 " No a neighbour of ours in England," replied 
 Frothingham. 
 
 " Delighted to hear it. You ought to have been 
 married and settled long ago. I still think you'd 
 have done better to sell your farm over there and settle 
 down here in Chicago." Barney would have scorned 
 to apply such words as estate and plantation to a farm 
 though he did call his shop an " Emporium." 
 
 Wickham went to New York with Frothingham the 
 next day but one; and on the day after they arrived 
 they had Honoria, chaperoned by Mrs. Galloway, at 
 dinner and at theatre, and, because Wickham insisted, 
 at supper. It was almost two o'clock when they put 
 
 [323] 
 
GOLDEN FLEECE 
 
 the two women in their carriage at the Waldorf and 
 went to bed Frothingham refused to sit up listening 
 to Wickham on Honoria. He was surprised that 
 Wickham had invited her for luncheon the next, or, 
 rather, the same day was astonished when he found 
 that she had accepted. His last three days in Amer 
 ica were spent in studying and encouraging an in 
 fatuation. 
 
 The morning of his departure came, and the steamer 
 which he assumed must be bringing Evelyn's letter, 
 as it had not arrived on Friday, was just getting in. 
 He decided that he would not put off his sailing to get 
 the letter " Why wait merely to satisfy my curiosity ? 
 Evelyn sent me over here. She knows what she's about 
 in recalling me." He left Hutt at the hotel to stay 
 until the last moment on the chance of the mail arriv 
 ing; he and Wickham went down to the pier Mrs. 
 Galloway and Honoria and Joe Wallingford and his 
 wife were already there. He had a few sentences aside 
 with Honoria. 
 
 " I'm so glad you introduced Mr. Barney to me," 
 she said. He trained his eyeglass upon her mockingly. 
 " Really ! How extraordinary ! Precisely what he 
 
 said on Wednesday." 
 
 [324] 
 
CHAPTER TWENTY 
 
 " Don't be a silly ass," protested Honoria in an 
 unconvincing voice. " He's only a big, nice boy. I'm 
 four years older than he. Or, rather, he's four years 
 younger than I I don't fancy the word old." 
 
 " That's as it should be. If a young chap will 
 marry, he should be several years the younger. She'll 
 keep him straight and bring him up properly. She'll 
 be patient with his ignorance and know how to handle 
 the reins when he frets or frisks. Good business, this 
 you're planning, Honoria." 
 
 " Do you think he likes me ? " 
 
 " Likes? He's positively drivelling. Look at 'im!" 
 
 Honoria's glance met Wickham's he was at the 
 rail, pretending to listen to Catherine. His " drivel 
 ling " expression as he came at the call in her eyes 
 seemed to please Honoria mightily. With the last go- 
 ing-ashore gong Hutt came bringing Evelyn's letter. 
 Frothingham at once read enough of it to interpret 
 her cablegram: 
 
 As you doubtless know, Georgia's father-in-law died in New 
 York a few weeks ago. He left them I don't know how much 
 something huge. And George is giving Gwen a dot of three 
 hundred thousand. She was just here with the news she came 
 to me the instant she heard it. As she was leaving she said : 
 4 ' Won't you give Arthur my love when you write ? " It's the 
 first time she's spoken of you to me since you left. And when I 
 
 [ 325 ] 
 
GOLDEN FLEECE 
 
 said, " I'll cable it to him," she blushed you should have seen 
 her, Arthur and heard her say, ** Oh, thank you, dear ! " 
 
 " Good chap, George," murmured Frothingham. 
 " The right sort clean through. He wouldn't let Gwen 
 and me be cheated as he and Evelyn were. 
 Poor Evelyn ! . . Gwen and me ! " He be 
 gan a sigh that changed into his faint smile of self- 
 mockery. " Just my beastly, rotten luck not to be 
 sure it's good luck when it finally does come." 
 
 He went to the rail and his glance sought out and 
 rested upon the little group of his friends on the 
 crowded pier across the widening gap between Nelly's 
 land and him. Wickham took Honoria's blue chiffon 
 parasol and waved it ; Catherine fluttered her handker 
 chief. He lifted his hat and bowed. Long after they 
 were lost to him in the merge of the crowd they could 
 make out his loud light tweeds and scarlet bow, and 
 once they caught the flash of a ray of sunlight on his 
 eyeglass like a characteristic farewell look. 
 
 It was five o'clock in a late September afternoon. 
 As usual, on the low table on the porch viewing the 
 Italian garden at Beauvais Hall was the big tea tray 
 with its array of antique silver and old porcelain, the 
 cake and the toast and the slices of bread and butter. 
 
CHAPTER TWENTY 
 
 Round it were Evelyn and Gwen and Frothingham 
 Gwen in a shirtwaist and riding skirt, Frothingham 
 in the slovenly, baggy flannels of an English gentle 
 man in the seclusion of his country-seat. No one was 
 speaking and the quiet was profound. Presently 
 Evelyn rose and went through the open French window 
 into the drawing room. Gwen was watching Froth 
 ingham ; he was watching the peacocks as they strutted 
 with tails spread in splendour. 
 
 " I'm always wondering that one of those clever, 
 handsome American women didn't steal your heart 
 if you've got one," said Gwen. 
 
 He slowly withdrew his gaze from the peacocks and 
 fixed it upon her with his monocled expression that 
 might mean everything or nothing. She chose to read 
 everything into it and flushed with pleasure. And 
 her left hand, moving nervously among the silver and 
 porcelain, revealed on its third finger a narrow, gold 
 band. 
 
 He drew a long, slow breath of lazy content and 
 drawled : 
 
 " You're so d n comfortable, Gwen ! " 
 
 THE END 
 
Htnn 
 
 Author of " The Second Generation 
 
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 THE REBELLION OF THE 
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 TRUE LOVE 
 
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 "A LAD OF THE O'FRIEL'S" 
 
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 Author of " The Banner of Blue," " The Firebrand" 
 
 FLOWER O' THE CORN 
 
 r 
 
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 ANNA OF THE FIVE TOWNS 
 
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