“I want to see her happy,” said I. “She will be happy with him--so, I hope he gets her.” I laughed mockingly. “She wouldn’t be happy with an American, Bob--not even with you.” He colored guiltily. “That idea never entered my head,” protested he. But I laughed the more. “And she wouldn’t have you, Bob,” I went on. “So, don’t put yourself in the way of being made uncomfortable.” He had enjoyed himself hugely. Not only was my former wife most entertaining, but also Margot. She had, beyond question, been beautifully educated for the part she was to take in life. Her manner--so Armitage assured me--was the perfection of gracious simplicity--the most exquisite exhibition of the perfect lady--“note how ladylike I am, yet how I treat you as if you were my equal.” Gracious--there’s the word that expresses the whole thing. And she had a quantity of bright parlor tricks--French recitation, a little ladylike singing in a pleasant plaintive soprano that gave people an excuse for saying: “She could have been a grand-opera star if she had cared to go in seriously for that sort of thing.” Also, a graceful skirt dance and a killing cake walk. She had an effective line of fashionable conversation, too--about books and pictures, analysis of soul states, mystic love theories--all the paraphernalia of a first-class heroine of a first-class society novel. And you, gentle reader, who know nothing, would never have dreamed that she knew nothing. You who are futile would not have seen how worthless she was--except to do skirt dances well enough for a drawing-room or to talk soul states well enough for a society novel. The more Armitage discoursed of the delights of his little visit the more nervous I became lest Edna should again change her mind and inflict me further. What he had said brought back my life with her in stinging vividness. I lived again the days of my self-deception, the darker days of my slow awakening, the black days of my full realization of the mess my life was, and of my feeling that there was no escape for me. “I will admit, Loring,” said Armitage, “that as women go our women are the best of all.” “Yes,” I assented, sincerely. “And they ought to be. America is the best place to grow men. Why shouldn’t it be the best place to grow women?” He did not pursue the subject. In his heart he disagreed with me, for he was wholly out of conceit with everything American. His pose had been the other way, and he shrank from uncovering himself. A day or so later I was crossing Green Park when I ran straight into Hartley Beechman. I smiled pleasantly, though not too cordially. He planted himself in front of me and stared with a tragic frown. I then noted that he verged on the unkempt, that he had skipped his morning shave and perhaps his bath. His stare was unmistakably offensive--the look of a man who is seeking a quarrel.