nd it impossible to
express her intense antipathy and sense of impending calamity. She had
not the phrases to make herself clear even to herself, and after all
what controlling effort can one produce when one is only eight years
old?

CHAPTER II

A LACK OF PERCEPTION

Mercantile as Americans were proclaimed to be, the opinion of Sir
Nigel Anstruthers was that they were, on some points, singularly
unbusinesslike. In the perfectly obvious and simple matter of the
settlement of his daughter's fortune, he had felt that Reuben Vanderpoel
was obtuse to the point of idiocy. He seemed to have none of the
ordinary points of view. Naturally there was to Anstruthers' mind but
one point of view to take. A man of birth and rank, he argued, does not
career across the Atlantic to marry a New York millionaire's daughter
unless he anticipates deriving some advantage from the alliance. Such
a man--being of Anstruthers' type--would not have married a rich woman
even in his own country with out making sure that advantages were to
accrue to himself as a result of the union. "In England," to use his
own words, "there was no nonsense about it." Women's fortunes as well as
themselves belonged to their husbands, and a man who was master in his
own house could make his wife do as he chose. He had seen girls with
money managed very satisfactorily by fellows who held a tight rein, and
were not moved by tears, and did not allow talking to relations. If
he had been desirous of marrying and could have afforded to take a
penniless wife, there were hundreds of portionless girls ready to thank
God for a decent chance to settle themselves for life, and one need not
stir out of one's native land to find them.

But Sir Nigel had not in the least desired to saddle himself with a
domestic encumbrance, in fact nothing would have induced him to consider
the step if he had not been driven hard by circumstances. His fortunes
had reached a stage where money must be forthcoming somehow--from
somewhere. He and his mother had been living from hand to mouth, so to
speak, for years, and they had also been obliged to keep up appearances,
which is sometimes embittering even to persons of amiable tempers. Lady
Anstruthers, it is true, had lived in the country in as niggardly
a manner as possible. She had narrowed her existence to absolute
privation, presenting at the same time a stern, bold front to the
persons who saw her, to the insufficient staff of servant