argument," she answered, "but whoever heard of an
aristocracy based on such things as these women engage in. Promise me,
Jack, that you will have nothing to do with any of them."

"You are unduly wrought up to-night," he answered, "but I will promise
you that I shall do nothing to cause you unnecessary annoyance. You
must not be too captious, dear, and remember that I go Thursday night."

She started to protest, but he drowned the effort in a shower of
caresses and bade her goodnight. Each of them, in the silence of their
own apartments, thought long and earnestly of this interview. Leonora
Kimball had been taught to believe that the chief badges of an
aristocracy were complete idleness of the women, and the possession of
enough wealth to support such idleness. It mattered not how mentally
insipid or morally opaque or physically inane such women might be, the
true test of being fitted for the purple was whether or not they had
ever done any useful work, and whether or not they had money enough so
that the other members of their set might feel assured that they never
would do any useful work. An aristocracy of trained brains or unselfish
culture were meaningless terms to her.

But this night she was greatly disturbed over the attitude of the man
she was to marry. She had been quite honest with him when she asserted
that jealousy was foreign to her nature; affection did not run deep
enough with her to strike its eternal renewing fountain--jealousy. The
practical character with which she had been endowed easily enough
conducted affairs of the heart along paths directed by the head, and
while her professions of love were quite sincere and her loyalty beyond
question, yet she had not the remotest idea of the grand passion. She
knew that she was very fond of John Earl; that he was worthy of her;
that he could sustain her manner of life and that his social standing
was all that either she or her mother could desire. She also knew that
she did not wish to lose him, and much as she abhorred the suffragists,
she determined to be lenient with his present mood, certain she could
change it ere long, else of what avail was the all-powerful "silent
influence" upon which the Anti-Suffragists laid so much stress?

Earl was more than disturbed by her attitude, for he discovered traits
of character and a shallowness of sympathy that shocked him. His dream
of married bliss was the absolute _camaraderie_ he expected it to bring.
He fear