t.

"What shall I tell you, Countess?" asked Claudius.

"Tell me what it was you did not like about their talk."

"It is hard to say, exactly. They were talking about women, and American
marriages; and I did not like it, that is all." Claudius straightened
himself again and turned towards his companion. The screw below them
rushed round, worming its angry way through the long quiet waves.

"Barker," said Claudius, "was saying that he supposed he would be
married some day--delivered up to torture, as he expressed it--and the
Duke undertook to prophesy and draw a picture of Barker's future spouse.
The picture was not attractive."

"Did Mr. Barker think so too?"

"Yes. He seemed to regard the prospects of matrimony from a resigned and
melancholy point of view. I suppose he might marry any one he chose in
his own country, might he not?"

"In the usual sense, yes," answered Margaret.

"What is the 'usual sense'?" asked the Doctor.

"He might marry beauty, wealth, and position. That is the usual meaning
of marrying whom you please."

"Oh! then it does not mean any individual he pleases?"

"Certainly not. It means that out of half a dozen beautiful, rich, and
accomplished girls it is morally certain that one, at least, would take
him for his money, his manners, and his accomplishments."

"Then he would go from one to the other until he was accepted? A
charming way of doing things, upon my word!" And Claudius sniffed the
night air discontentedly.

"Oh no," said Margaret. "He will be thrown into the society of all six,
and one of them will marry him, that will be the way of it."

"I cannot say I discover great beauty in that social arrangement either,
except that it gives the woman the choice."

"Of course," she answered, "the system does not pretend to the
beautiful, it only aspires to the practical. If the woman is satisfied
with her choice, domestic peace is assured." She laughed.

"Why cannot each satisfy himself or herself of the other? Why cannot the
choice be mutual?"

"It would take too long," said she; and laughed again.

"Very long?" asked Claudius, trying not to let his voice change. But it
changed nevertheless.

"Generally very long," she answered in a matter-of-fact way.

"Why should it?"

"Because neither women nor men are so easily understood as a chapter of
philosophy," said she.

"Is it not the highest pleasure in life, that constant, loving study of
the one person one loves? Is not e