s. It was simply the old, old story of a
woman of the upper class becoming infatuated with a man of a genuine
kind of manhood rarely found in the languor-producing surroundings of
her own class. Would Victor yield? No! her loyalty indignantly
answered. But he might allow this useless idler to hamper him, to
weaken his energies for the time--and during a critical period.

She did not wish to see Victor again until she should have decided what
course to take. To think at her ease she walked out Monroe Avenue on
her way to the country. It was a hot day, but walking along in the
beautiful shade Selma felt no discomfort, except a slight burning of
the eyes from the fierce glare of the white highway. In the distance
she heard the sound of an engine.

A few seconds, and past her at high speed swept an automobile. Its
heavy flying wheels tore up the roadway, raised an enormous cloud of
dust. The charm of the walk was gone; the usefulness of roadway and
footpaths was destroyed for everybody for the fifteen or twenty minutes
that it would take for the mass of dust to settle--on the foliage, in
the grass, on the bodies and clothing of passers-by and in their lungs.
Selma halted and gazed after the auto. Who was tearing along at this
mad speed? Who was destroying the comfort of all using that road, and
annoying them and making the air unfit to breathe! Why, an idle,
luxuriously dressed woman, not on an errand of life or death, but going
down town to amuse herself shopping or calling.

The dust had not settled before a second auto, having a young man and
young woman apparently on the way to play tennis, rushed by, swirling
up even vaster clouds of dust and all but colliding with a baby
carriage a woman was trying to push across the street. Selma's blood
was boiling! The infamy of it! These worthless idlers! What utter
lack of manners, of consideration for their fellow beings. A GENTLEMAN
and a LADY insulting and bullying everyone who happened not to have an
automobile. Then--she laughed. The ignorant, stupid masses! They
deserved to be treated thus contemptuously, for they could stop it if
they would. "Some day we shall learn," philosophized she. "Then these
brutalities of men toward each other, these brutalities big and little,
will cease." This matter of the insulting automobiles, with insolent
horns and criminal folly of speed and hurling dust at passers-by, worse
than if the occupants had spat upon them in