It is difficult not to convey a false impression of Margaret at this time. Habits, manners, outward conduct--nay, the superficial kindliness in human intercourse, the exterior graceful qualities, may all remain when the character has subtly changed, when the real aims have changed, when the ideals are lowered. The fair exterior may be only a shell. I can imagine the heart retaining much tenderness and sympathy with suffering when the soul itself has ceased to struggle for the higher life, when the mind has lost, in regard to life, the final discrimination of what is right and wrong.

Perhaps it is fairer to Margaret to consider the general opinion of the world regarding her. No doubt, if we had now known her for the first time, we should have admired her exceedingly, and probably have accounted her thrice happy in filling so well her brilliant position. That her loss of interest in things intellectual, in a wide range of topics of human welfare, which is in the individual soul a sign of warmth and growth, made her less companionable to some is true, but her very absorption in the life of her world made her much more attractive to others. I well remember a dinner one day at the Hendersons', when Mr. Morgan and I happened to be in town, and the gay chat and persiflage of the society people there assembled. Margaret shone in it. The light and daring touch of her raillery Carmen herself might have envied, and the spirit in which she handled the trifles and personal gossip tossed to the surface, like the bubbles on the champagne.

It was such a pretty picture--the noble diningroom, the table sparkling with glass and silver and glowing with masses of choicest flowers from the conservatory, the animated convives, and Margaret presiding, radiant in a costume of white and gold.

"After all," Morgan was saying, apropos of the position of women, "men get mighty little out of it in the modern arrangement."

"I've always said, Mr. Morgan," Margaret retorted, "that you came into the world a couple of centuries too late; you ought to have been here in the squaw age."

"Well, men were of some account then. I appeal to Henderson," Morgan persisted, "if he gets more than his board and clothes."

"Oh, my husband has to make his way; he's no time for idling and philosophizing round."

"I should think not. Come, Henderson, speak up; what do you get out of it?"

"Oh," said Henderson, glancing at his wife with an amused expression, "I'm doing very well. I'm very well taken care of, but I often wonder what the fellows did when polygamy was the fashion."

"Polygamy, indeed!" cried Margaret. "So men only dropped the a pluribus unum method on account of the expense?"

"Not at all," replied Henderson. "Women are so much better now than formerly that one wife is quite enough."

"You have got him well in hand, Mrs. Henderson, but--" Morgan began.

"But," continued Margaret for him, "you think as things are going that polyandry will have to come in fashion--a woman will need more than one husband to support her?"

"And I was born too soon," murmured Carmen.

"Yes, dear, you'll have to be born again. But, Mr. Morgan, you don't seem to understand what civilization is."

"I'm beginning to. I've been thinking--this is entirely impersonal--that it costs more to keep one fine lady going than it does a college. Just reckon it up." (Margaret was watching him with sparkling eyes.) "The palace in town is for her, the house in the mountains, the house by the sea, are for her, the army of servants is for her, the horses and carriages for all weathers are for her, the opera box is for her, and then the wardrobe--why, half Paris lives on what women wear. I say nothing of what would become of the medical profession but for her."

"Have you done?" asked Margaret.

"No, but I'm taking breath."

"Well, why shouldn't we support the working-people of Paris and elsewhere? Do you want us to make our own clothes and starve the sewing-women? Suppose there weren't any balls and fine dresses and what you call luxury. What would the poor do without the rich? Isn't it the highest charity to give them work? Even with it they are ungrateful enough."

"That is too deep for me," said Morgan, evasively. "I suppose they ought to be contented to see us enjoying ourselves. It's all in the way of civilization, I dare say."

"It's just as I thought," said Margaret, more lightly. "You haven't an inkling of what civilization is. See that flower before you. It is the most exquisite thing in this room. See the refinement of its color and form. That was cultivated. The plant came from South Africa. I don't know what expense the gardener has been to about it, what material and care have been necessary to bring it to perfection. You may take it to Mrs. Morgan as an object-lesson. It is a thing of beauty. You cannot put any of your mercantile value on it. Well, that is woman, the consummate flower of civilization. That is what civilization is for."

"I'm sorry for you, old fellow," said Henderson.

"I'm sorry for myself," Carmen said, demurely.

"I admit all that," Morgan replied. "Take Mr. Henderson as a gardener, then."

"Suppose you take somebody else, and let my husband eat his dinner."

"Oh, I don't mind preaching; I've got used to being made to point a moral."

"But he will go on next about the luxury of the age, and the extravagance of women, and goodness knows what," said Margaret.

"No, I'm talking about men," Morgan continued. "Consider Henderson--it's entirely impersonal--as a gardener. What does he get out of his occupation? He can look at the flower. Perhaps that is enough. He gets a good dinner when he has time for it, an hour at his club now and then, occasionally an evening or half a day off at home, a decent wardrobe--"

"Fifty-two suits," interposed Margaret.

"His own brougham--"

"And a four-in-hand," added Margaret.

"A pass on the elevated road--"

"And a steam-yacht."

"Which he never gets time to sail in; practically all the time on the road, or besieged by a throng in his office, hustled about from morning till night, begged of, interviewed, a telegraphic despatch every five minutes, and--"

"And me!" cried Margaret, rising. The guests all clapped their hands.

The Hendersons liked to have their house full, something going on--dinners, musicales, readings, little comedies in the theatre; there was continual coming and going, calling, dropping in for a cup of tea, late suppers after the opera; the young fellows of town found no place so agreeable for a half-hour after business as Mrs. Henderson's reception-room. I fancied that life would be dull and hang heavily, especially for Margaret, without this perpetual movement and excitement. Henderson, who certainly had excitement enough without seeking it at home, was pleased that his wife should be a leader in society, as he was in the great enterprises in which his fortune waxed to enormous proportions. About what we call the home life I do not know. Necessarily, as heretofore, Henderson was often absent, and whether Margaret accompanied him or not, a certain pace of life had to be kept up.

I suppose there is no delusion more general than that of retiring upon a fortune--as if, when gained, a fortune would let a person retire, or, still more improbable, as if it ever were really attained. It is not at all probable that Henderson had set any limit to that he desired; the wildest speculations about its amount would no doubt fall short of satisfying the love of power which he expected to gratify in immeasurably increasing it. Does not history teach us that to be a great general, or poet, or philanthropist, is not more certain to preserve one's name than to be the richest man, the Croesus, in his age? I could imagine Margaret having a certain growing pride in this distinction, and a glowing ambition to be socially what her husband was financially.

Heaven often plans more mercifully for us than we plan for ourselves. Had not the Hebrew prophets a vision of the punishme............