of those things the world desires? And Mrs. Gower’s equals see these things and do homage; and their daughters wed for these, and their husbands work; and in pretty Jenny Starbuck’s head, walking on the roadside, the homage turns to envy; and in James her brother’s heart, to gall. Arthur went in this sleigh many times, and enjoyed it, and said pretty things to Mrs. Gower in exchange. He had a poet’s delight in rich and beautiful things, in show and speed and glitter. Shine, not light, attracts your women, says Goethe; and the old courtier-poet might have said the same of men, himself included. And Mrs. Gower lolled back, beautiful, her yellow hair shining strangely through the snow; so Helen in the Greek sunlight; so Faustina in the streets of noble Rome; so Gutrune, by whose wiles twelve thousand heroes and the gods went down to darkling death. All these were blondes, and smiled and charmed and had their adoration and their joy of life. What call had Flossie to trouble herself with the eternal verities, or man’s past or future? She was not eternal. She was, furthermore, a skeptic and a cynic--if a butterfly can be said to be skeptic of eternal life. She had no real knowledge of the things she won. She would have liked the sword of Siegfried for a panoply, to put the Grail in her cabinet of rare china. She would have liked to possess these things, and money and fans and dresses, and have other women know that she possessed them. She would have liked to possess men’s hearts. Not that she was wicked. She was no tragedy queen, no evil heroine of romance; she had no desire, so far as she knew, to injure anyone. She would have paid a fortune for a picture that other people admired; but she would have exchanged it for a ball-dress, had there been but one ball-dress in the world; and she simply did not believe in the Holy Grail, or the sword of Siegfried, or men’s hearts. So a rude conqueror thirsts for the great King’s talisman, and barters it for an ounce of colored glass, and wears the latter on a ring in his nose. But yet this glass is not the ultimate reality, despite its wearer’s pride.