Mabel rustled into her husband’s dressing room as he was giving the last careful strokes to his front locks, which he arranged in a manner peculiar to himself. He nodded to her absently, longing for the time when he could ask her bluntly to respect his privacy, since she was impervious to hints, and she wandered to the window and fingered the bright flowers in the boxes.

“It is such a heavenly day,” she sighed. “Somehow, I never can grow accustomed to spending summer in the city. How—how—does Countess Tann like London?”

“She loves it, of course. Who does not love London at this season?”

“Well, it is certainly much nicer than to sing here in winter. I suppose she is perfectly wild over her success.”

“She has never had anything else.”

“But I mean in London, where no one, that is only a few, really likes Wagner. Some one said yesterday that, although Styr’s personal success was beyond dispute, he feared the Wagner season would be a failure as a whole; five weeks of Wagner was more than any one not a German could stand, and if they give the Ring again—”

“They will do nothing so tactless. But Die Walküre is romantic enough to please the silliest and great enough to entrance those that really do know music. No other performance of G?tterd?mmerung will be given, more’s the pity, for Brünhilde was always one of her two greatest r?les, and her rendering of it has deepened and even changed somewhat since I heard it in Munich. But no doubt it would fill the house only once—with people that want to be able to say they have heard the Ring! Styr has also consented to sing Elizabeth and Elsa; her voice is rather heavy for those r?les, but a hundred people will go to hear Lohengrin and Tannh?user where one will even show himself at the greater operas a second time. The enterprise is not in the hands of fools—I know several members of the committee—and everything has been thought of to insure the season’s success.”

“How nice! Of course she is quite extraordinary. I am so sorry I could only sit through one act last night. And what a pity I cannot meet her. It is too old-fashioned of mother.”

“You could leave a card on her.”

“But, Jackie dear, she would then feel at liberty to come here, and after all it is mother’s house.”

Ordham turned to her with a rising flush. “Do you mean that you believe Countess Tann would force herself upon any one? I must have given you a strange opinion of her.”

“Good heavens, Jackie dear, I hope you have not told her that we—that mother will not receive her. How dreadful!”

“Certainly I have not. But she does not happen to be a fool. She has now been in London ten days, and as neither my wife nor my mother-in-law has left so much as a card on her, don’t you suppose she understands?”

“But surely you told her that I cannot go about?”

“You drive every day. There is no effort involved in leaving a card.”

“But—how like a man! One can hardly go that far and no farther. If this were only our house!”

Ordham drew his lids together. “If it were, would you receive Countess Tann?”

But Mabel did not flinch. “Of course I would, Jackie darling. I would even defy mother—we could go to a hotel—if only I felt up to it. But I am a wreck and mother takes such care of me.”

Ordham set his teeth and turned away, grimly reflecting that the one mental trait his wife possessed which compelled his admiration was the neatness with which she could deliver a lie. She broke off the heads of several geraniums and then cried out, as if suddenly inspired with a bright idea: “Let us go to the country to-day. It is too utterly heavenly to stay in town. Let us take a long drive through Surrey.”

“It is not good for you to take long drives.”

“Oh, it won’t hurt me a bit. We can rest often in those ducky little inns, and sit in the woods. It would be too delicious.”

“There might be an accident, and I never should forgive myself.”

“Oh! With our horses? One is always thankful when any horses of mother’s will go off a walk. Say that you will!” She spoke with a charming girlish eagerness.

“I am afraid that I cannot. I have half a dozen engagements.”

“But, Jackie darling, you ought not to make engagements for a whole day when you know how lonesome I am without you.” Mabel fell headlong into the domestic snare, heedless of resolutions and advice from her mother-in-law.

He turned to her with the flush gone from his face, and said in the gentlest manner possible: “Should you mind if I asked you not to call me Jackie? I have often intended to do so. I hope you don’t mind.”

It was Mabel’s turn to flush, and although her temper was not quick, her eyes flashed and her lips trembled. “Why?” she demanded. “Do—do you think it a liberty?”

“How can you say such a thing?” But although he spoke promptly, he was surprised to discover that she had put a latent resentment into form.

“Why,” stammered Mabel, “you are English. I believe mother is right. But this—this is really too much. I wonder if you could ever understand that we Americans have exactly as good an opinion of ourselves as you English have of yourselves? Perhaps we too look down upon all other nations. We have the right to! United States Histo............