Part 33 (2/2)

At the top, a sole and unapproachable figure, the twelfth Earl of Strathay, just out of school;

Next a society, two-thirds of whose daughters will marry abroad, and to all of whose members an Earl's lack of a wife is a burning issue;

Hanging by their skirts a thousand others, like the General and Mrs.

Henry, available for big functions, pus.h.i.+ng to get into the little ones;

Hanging by these in turn, ten thousand others outside the pale, but flinging money right and left in charity or prodigality to catch the eyes of those who catch the eyes of those who nod to Earls;

And after them n.o.body!

And the problem: ”How high can we climb?”

Why, there are twenty thousand families in New York rich enough to be Elect, if wealth were all. I could almost marry Strathay to save him from the ugly millioned girls! How they hate me!

I know what love is like, now; Strathay means to speak. If Ned would only--but three weeks--three long, long weeks, and he doesn't--oh, I won't believe that, deep in his heart he does not love me. It's not time-- not time, yet, to think about the little Earl!

At any rate I won't be flung at his head; last night I taught Meg a lesson she'll remember. She meant to bring him home to supper after the Opera, where, in spite of my first experience, we're constant now in attendance; but, to her surprise, then dismay, then almost abject remonstrance, I prepared to go out before dinner to inspect the new studio Kitty and Cadge have taken.

”Be back in good season?” she pleaded. ”How _could_ you make an engagement for the night when Strathay.--Not wait for you! Why Helen, you can't--what would Strathay think if I allowed you to arrive alone at the Opera?”

”Then can't you and Peggy entertain him?”

”Peggy?” She looked at me with blank incredulity. ”You wouldn't stay away when Strathay--why, Helen, you didn't mean that. Drive straight to the Metropolitan when you leave your--those people, if you don't wish to come back for me. Where do they live?” she groaned despairingly.

”Top of a business block in West Fourteenth Street.”

I thought she would have refused me the carriage for such a trip, but she didn't venture quite so far as that; and the hour I spent with the girls was a blessed breathing spell.

”What a barn!” I cried, when I had climbed more stairs than I could count to the big loft where I found them. ”Girls, how came you here?”

”Behold the prodigal daughter! Shall we kill the fatted rarebit?” And Kitty threw herself upon me; while Cadge, waving her arms proudly at the Navajo rugs, stuffed heads of animals and vast canva.s.ses of Indian braves and ponies that made the weird place more weird, replied to my query:--

”Borrowed it of an artist who's wintering in Mexico; cheap; just as it stands.”

Then they installed me under a queer tepee, and we had one of the old time picked-up suppers, and for an hour my troubles were pushed into the background. The girls are in such frightful taste that I really should drop them, but they're loyal and so proud of me!

”Princess,” said Cadge, ”time you were letting contracts for the building of fresh worlds to s.h.i.+ne in. You're the most famous person in this, with all the women thirsting for your gore; and you've a real live Lord for a 'follower.'”

”That's nothing.”

Cadge thinks me still betrothed to John, so she affected to misunderstand.

”Nearly nothing, for a fact,” she said; ”it isn't ornamental, but we seldom see specimens and mustn't judge hastily. And it is a Lord.--See the hand-out he gave me for last Sunday--full-page interview: 'Earl of Strathay Discusses American Society?'

”Some English won't stand for anything but a regular pie-faced story, but Strathay's a real good little man.”

”You said he had sixty-nine pairs of shoes,” said Kitty reminiscently.

<script>