But the thing she called love was not love at all, was merely as I described it to her--a newly discovered way of using me after she had thought all possible use for me exhausted. Such, gentle reader, is the simple truth. Yet because I had intelligence enough to see the truth and firmness enough not to be swayed by shallow and meaningless sentimentalities, you call me hard, harsh, cruel. One of your impulsive kindly souls would have taken her weeping to his arms, would have begun to live with her. And there the novel would have ended, with you, gentle reader, all tears and thrills. For, having no imagination, you would have been unable to picture the few weeks of cat-and-dog life after the “happy ending,” then the breaking apart in hatred and vindictiveness. But this is not an “artistic” novel. It is a story of life, a plain setting forth of actualities, in the hope that it may enable some men and women to understand life more clearly and to live their own lives more wisely and perhaps less mischievously. I went to my daughter. “Margot,” said I, “your mother threatens to try to stop the divorce. It is best for both her and me that we be free. I am determined not to live with her again, for I abominate the sort of life she and you lead. If you will do what you can to bring her to her senses, I will see that you don’t regret it.” Margot rather liked me, I believe. Not as a father; as a father I made her ashamed, like everything else American about her. But it was a resigned kind of shame, and she appreciated my money, my good nature about it and my services in bringing back her marquis and making possible her son the earl. I knew I could count on her active sympathy; for she would vastly prefer that her mother be the Princess Frascatoni. My mother, Mrs. Loring; my mother, the Princess Frascatoni. Pronounce those two phrases, gentle reader, and you will grasp my meaning. I was by no means sure she would have any influence with her mother, even though she was now the wife of one marquis and the mother of a marquis to be, with about half the high British peerage as relatives. But I was desperate, and a desperate man clutches at anything. “I think you are right, papa,” said she in her mother’s own grave sweet way. “You and mamma never have been suited to each other. Besides, I don’t want her away off in America where I never expect to be again. Some of the girls who have married here like to go back there and receive the flattery and the homage. But it seems cheap to me. I’m sure I don’t care what the Americans think of me. I’m not snobbish, as I used to be. I am English now--loyal English to the core.” “This is the place for your mother, too.” An idea occurred to me. “If I took your mother back with me, I would have my parents and hers live with us in a big place I’m going to buy in the country. You don’t know your grandparents well?” She was coloring deeply. She must have heard more than her mother dreamed she knew. “No, papa,” said she.