It was most satisfactory, talking with her now that she consented to speak and listen to good sense. I was at once in a more amiable frame of mind, although I knew she had descended from her high horse only because she was shrewd enough to see it was the one way to get me to do as she wished. “I will hide behind a go-between myself,” said I. “Any English lawyer would simply play into the hands of the other side. At least, so Hilda was telling me.” “Is she happy?” “Very.” “When’s her husband coming back?” “Not for a year or so, I believe. Lord Blankenship cares more for big game and for exploring than for anything else.” “An ideal marriage,” said I. “She brought him the money he wanted. He brought her the title she wanted. And they don’t annoy each other. He devotes himself to sport, she to society. These aristocratic people, with their simple, vulgar wants that are so easily gratified--how they are to be envied!” Edna was observing me furtively, uneasily. I pretended not to notice. I went on: “Now, if they wanted the difficult things--things like love and companionship and congeniality--they might be wretched. When a child cries for a stick of candy or a tinsel-covered rattle--for money or social position--why, it’s easily pacified. But if it cries for the moon and the stars--” I laughed softly, enjoying her wonder as much as my own fancies. After a while she said, with some constraint: “You see a great deal of Armitage?” “We console each other,” said I, with mild raillery. “Have you been going out much?” “I’m very busy.” “In one of your letters-- Those rare little notes of yours! You are cruelly neglectful, Godfrey-- In one of them you spoke of a week end or so on Armitage’s yacht. You and he don’t go off alone?” “Oh, no. Some literary and artistic people usually are aboard.” “I didn’t know you cared for that sort.” “They’re interesting enough.” “I suppose they’re friends of Mrs. Kirkwood’s,” pursued Edna. “She’s like her brother--affects to despise fashionable society. Their pretenses always amused me.” “They are sincere people,” said I. “They don’t pretend. That’s why I like them.” “I notice that Armitage belongs to every fashionable club in New York--and to some over here,” said Edna with a smile that was as shrewd as her observation. “Also, that he manages to find time to appear at the most exclusive parties during the season.” I had observed this same peculiarity. While I refused to draw from it the inference she drew--and was undeniably justified in drawing--I had been tempted to do so. It irritated me to see her finger upon the weak spot in Armitage’s profession of freedom from snobbishness. “And Mary Kirkwood,” pursued Edna, “she’s the same sort of fakir. Only, being a woman, she does it more deceptively than he.” “She goes nowhere,” said I.