o said that New England women
seemed to her all conscience--Southern women all soul and impulse. If it
were possible to generalize in this way, we might say that Carmen had
neither conscience nor soul, simply very clever reason. Uncle Jerry had
no more conscience than Carmen, but he had a great deal of natural
affection. Henderson, with an abundance of good-nature, was simply a man
of his time, troubled with no scruples that stood in the way of his
success. Margaret, with a finer nature than either of them, stifling her
scruples in an atmosphere of worldly-mindedness, was likely to go further
than either of them. Even such a worldling as Carmen understood this. "I
do things," she said to Mrs. Laflamme--she made anybody her confidant
when the fit was on her--"I do things because I don't care. Mrs.
Henderson does the same, but she does care."

Margaret would be a sadder woman, but not a better woman, when the time
came that she did not care. She had come to the point of accepting
Henderson's methods of overreaching the world, and was tempering the
result with private liberality. Those were hypocrites who criticised him;
those were envious who disparaged him; the sufficient ethics of the world
she lived in was to be successful and be agreeable. And it is difficult
to condemn a person who goes with the general opinion of his generation.
Carmen was under no illusions about Henderson, or the methods and manners
of which she was a part. "Why pretend?" she said. "We are all bad
together, and I like it. Uncle Jerry is the easiest person to get on
with." I remember a delightful, wicked old baroness whom I met in my
youth stranded in Geneva on short allowance--European resorts are full of
such characters. "My dear," she said, "why shouldn't I renege? Why
shouldn't men cheat at cards? It's all in the game. Don't we all know we
are trying to deceive each other and get the best of each other? I
stopped pretending after Waterloo. Fighting for the peace of Europe! Bah!
We are all fighting for what we can get."

So the Catachoobee Henderson Hall was dedicated, and Mr. Henderson got
great credit out of it.

"It's a noble deed, Mr. Henderson," Carmen remarked, when they were at
dinner on the car the day of their departure. "But"--in an aside to her
host--"I advise the lambs in Wall Street to look alive at your next
deal."

XX

We can get used to anything. Morgan says that even the New England summer
is endurable when you learn