“I do,” he replied. “Not to this insignificant, baldheaded thing that is I, but to what in the way of position and power I represent. An American woman would bring her traditions along with her--her superior culture, her natural right to be enthroned as queen, her expectation that I would take a back seat in my own house. It is I that would become a sort of grotesque decoration in the place. Now, I may be grotesque, but I will not consent to be decorative. I fully intend to be master. I am not going to be Mrs. Theodore Weever's husband. I want an Englishwoman to bring along her traditions. She will be naturally _grande dame_; she will come to my house, my social world, frankly the wife of Theodore Weever, and ready to support the dignity, whatever it may be, of Theodore Weever, just as she would have supported the dignity of Lord So and So, had she been married to him in England.” “You will find thousands of English girls who can do that,” said Norma. “I don't see your difficulty.” “She must be decorative,” said Weever. “And that means?” “She must be a queenly woman, but one content to be queen consort. Your queenly woman--with brains--is not so easy to find. I have met only one in my life who is beyond all my dreams of the ideal. Of course the inherent malice of things screws her down like one blade of a pair of scissors to another fellow.” “Who is the paragon?” asked Norma. “It wouldn't be fair on the other fellow to tell you,” said he. “Is it sheer honesty, or the fear of being cut in half by the pair of scissors that keeps you from coming between them?” “I think it's honesty,” he replied. “If I can guess rightly, the scissors have n't so fine an edge on them as to make them dangerous.” “They may be desperately in love with one another, for all you know.” “They are delightful worldlings of our own particular world, dear lady,” said Weever, with a smile. Thus was Norma given to understand that the post of decorative queen consort in Mr. Theodore Weever's Fifth Avenue palace was at her disposal. A year ago she might have considered the offer seriously; now that she felt secure of a brilliant position as Morland's wife, she was amused by its frank impudence. She held other laughing conversations with him on the subject of his search, but too prudent to commit indiscretions, she gave no hint that she had understood his personal allusion, and Weever was too shrewd to proceed any further towards his own undoing. They remained paired, however, to their mutual satisfaction, until Morland's arrival, when Theodore Weever took his departure. In fact, the same carriage that conveyed the American to the station remained for a necessary half-hour to meet Morland's train, and Norma, who dutifully drove down to welcome her affianced, shared the carriage with the departing guest. She stood on the platform chatting with him as he leaned out of the window. “When shall we see each other again?” she said idly. “Next month.”