ith the fires of spring? He recalled several of Miss Pelham's
socialistic remarks concerning the privileges of the "upper ten," the
intolerance of caste and the snobbish morality which attaches folly to
none but the girl who "works for a living."

Immediately after tiffin, Genevra carried Lady Deppingham off to her
room. When they came forth for a proposed stroll in the grounds, Lady
Agnes was looking very meek and tearful, while the Princess had about
her the air of one who has conquered by gentleness. In the upper
corridor, where it was dark and quiet, the wife of Deppingham halted
suddenly and said:

"It has been so appallingly dull, Genevra, don't you understand? That's
why. Besides, it isn't necessary for her to be so horrid about it.
She--"

"She isn't horrid about it, dear. She's most self-sacrificing."

"Rubbish! She talks about the Puritans, and all that sort of thing. I
know what she means. But there's no use talking about it. I'll do as you
say--command, I mean. I'll try to be a prude. Heaven alone knows what a
real prude is. I don't. All this tommy-rot about Bobby and me wouldn't
exist if that wretched Chase man had been a little more affable. He
never noticed us until you came. No wife to snoop after him and--why, my
dear, he would have been ideal."

"It's all very nice, Agnes, but you forget your husband," said Genevra,
with a tolerant smile.

"Deppy? Oh, my dear," and she laughed gaily once more. "Deppy doesn't
mind. He rather likes me to be nice to other men. That is, if they are
nice men. Indeed, I don't forget Deppy! I shall remember him to my dying
day."

"Your point of view is quite different from that of a Boston wife, I'd
suggest."

"Certainly. We English have a colonial policy. We've spread out, my
dear."

"You are frivolous once more, Agnes."

"Genevra," said Lady Agnes solemnly, "if you'd been on a barren island
for five months as I have, with nothing to look at but your husband and
the sunsets, you would not be so hard on me. I wouldn't take Drusilla's
husband away from her for the world; I wouldn't even look at him if he
were not on the barren island, too. I've read novels in which a man and
woman have been wrecked on a desert island and lived there for months,
even years, in an atmosphere of righteousness. My dear, those novelists
are ninnies. Nobody could be so good as all that without getting wings.
And if they got wings they'd soon fly away from each other. Angels are
the onl