was tragic. Her lean fingers were clutching
at the air. Von Rosen stared at her. She sat down and swept her
crackling white apron over her head.

Chapter III

When Margaret Edes had returned home after the Zenith Club, she
devoted an hour to rest. She had ample time for that before dressing
for a dinner which she and her husband were to give in New York that
evening. The dinner was set for rather a late hour in order to enable
Margaret to secure this rest before the train-time. She lay on a
couch before the fire, in her room which was done in white and gold.
Her hair was perfectly arranged, for she had scarcely moved her head
during the club meeting, and had adjusted and removed her hat with
the utmost caution. Now she kept her shining head perfectly still
upon a rather hard pillow. She did not relax her head, but she did
relax her body, and the result, as she was aware, would be
beautifying.

Still as her head remained, she allowed no lines of disturbance to
appear upon her face, and for that matter, no lines of joy. Secretly
she did not approve of smiles, more than she approved of tears. Both
of them, she knew, tended to leave traces, and other people,
especially other women, did not discriminate between the traces of
tears and smiles. Therefore, lying with her slim graceful body
stretched out at full length upon her couch, Margaret Edes' face was
as absolutely devoid of expression as a human face could well be, and
this although she was thinking rather strenuously. She had not been
pleased with the impression which Mrs. Sarah Joy Snyder had made upon
the Zenith Club, because Mrs. Slade, and not she, had been
instrumental in securing her valuable services. Mrs. Edes had a
Napoleonic ambition which was tragic and pathetic, because it could
command only a narrow scope for its really unusual force. If Mrs.
Edes had only been possessed of the opportunity to subjugate Europe,
nothing except another Waterloo could have stopped her onward march.
But she had absolutely nothing to subjugate except poor little
Fairbridge. She was a woman of power which was wasted. She was
absurdly tragic, but none the less tragic. Power spent upon petty
ends is one of the greatest disasters of the world. It wrecks not
only the spender, but its object. Mrs. Edes was horribly and
unworthily unhappy, reflecting upon Mrs. Sarah Joy Snyder and Mrs.
Slade. She cared very much because Mrs. Slade and not she had brought
about this success