There was a good deal of running into each other’s rooms before dressing for dinner among the ladies at Montfitchet, that night.  They had, they felt, to exchange views about the new bride!  And the opinions were favorable, on the whole; unanimous, as to her beauty and magnetic attraction; divided, as to her character; but fiercely and venomously antagonistic in one mean, little heart.

Emily and Mary and Lady Betty Burns clustered together in the latter’s room.  “We think she is perfectly lovely, Betty,” Emily said, “but we don’t know her as yet.  She is rather stiff, and frightens us just a little.  Perhaps she is shy.  What do you think?”

“She looks just like the heroines in some of the books that Mamma does not let me read and I am obliged to take up to bed with me.  Don’t you know, Mary ­especially the one I lent you ­deeply, mysteriously tragic.  You remember the one who killed her husband and then went off with the Italian Count; and then with some one else.  It was frightfully exciting.”

“Good gracious!  Betty,” exclaimed Emily.  “How dreadful!  You don’t think our sister-in-law looks like that?”

“I really don’t know,” said Lady Betty, who was nineteen and wrote lurid melodramas ­to the waste of much paper and the despair of her mother.  “I don’t know.  I made one of my heroines in my last play have just those passionate eyes ­and she stabbed the villain in the second act!”

“Yes, but,” said Mary, who felt she must defend Tristram’s wife, “Zara isn’t in a play and there is no villain, and ­why, Betty, no one has tragedies in real life!”

Lady Betty tossed her flaxen head, while she announced a prophecy, with an air of deep wisdom which positively frightened the other two girls.

“You mark my words, both of you, Emily and Mary ­they will have some tragedy before the year is out!  And I shall put it all in my next play.”

And with this fearful threat ringing in their ears Tristram’s two sisters walked in a scared fashion to their room.

“Betty is wonderful, isn’t she, darling?” Mary said.  “But, Em, you don’t think there is any truth in it, do you?  Mother would be so horribly shocked if there was anything like one of Betty’s plays in the family, wouldn’t she?  And Tristram would never allow it either!”

“Of course not, you goosie,” answered Emily.  “But Betty is right in one way ­Zara has got a mysterious face, and ­and, Mary ­Tristram seemed somehow changed, I thought; rather sarcastic once or twice.”

And then their maid came in and put a stop to their confidences.

“She is the most wonderful person I have ever met, Ethelrida,” Lady Anningford was just then saying, as she and the hostess stopped at her door and let Lady Thornby and the young Countess of Melton go on. ­“She is wickedly beautiful and attractive, and there is something odd about her, too, and it touches me; and I don’t believe she is really wicked a bit.  Her eyes are like storm clouds.  I have heard her first husband was a brute.  I can’t think who told me but it came from some one at one of the Embassies.”

“We don’t know much about her, any of us,” Lady Ethelrida said, “but Aunt Jane asked us all in the beginning to trust Tristram’s judgment:  he is awfully proud, you know.  And besides, her uncle, Mr. Markrute, is so nice.  But, Anne ­” and Lady Ethelrida paused.

“Well, what, dear?  Tristram is awfully in love with her, isn’t he?” Lady Anningford asked.

“Yes,” said Lady Ethelrida, “but, Anne, do you really think Tristram looks happy?  I thought when he was not speaking his face seemed rather sad.”

“The Crow came down in the train with them,” Lady Anningford announced.  “I’ll hear the whole exact impression of them after dinner and tell you.  The Crow is always right.”

“She is so very attractive, I am sure, to every man who sees her, Anne.  I hope Lord Elterton won’t begin and make Tristram jealous.  I wish I had not asked him.  And then there is Laura ­It was awful taste, I think, her insisting upon coming, don’t you? ­Anne, if she seems as if she were going to be horrid you will help me to protect Zara, won’t you? ­And now we really must dress.”

In another room Mrs. Harcourt was chatting with her sister and Lady Highford.

“She is perfectly lovely, Laura,” Miss Opie said.  “Her hair must reach down to the ground and looks as if it would not come off, and her skin isn’t even powdered ­I examined it, on purpose, in a side light.  And those eyes!  Je-hoshaphat! as Jimmy Danvers says.”

“Poor, darling Tristram!” Laura sighed sentimentally while she inwardly registered her intense dislike of “the Opie girl.”  “He looks melancholy enough ­for a bridegroom; don’t you think so, Kate?” and she lowered her eyes, with a glance of would-be meaning, as though she could say more, if she wished.  “But no wonder, poor dear boy!  He loathed the marriage; it was so fearfully sudden.  I suppose the Markrute man had got him in his power.”

“You don’t say so!” Mrs. Harcourt gasped.  She was a much simpler person than her sister.  “Jimmy assured me that Lord Tancred was violently in love with her, and that was it.”

“Jimmy always was a fool,” Lady Highford said, and as they went on to their rooms Lily Opie whispered,

“Kate, Laura Highford is an odious cat, and I don’t believe a word about Mr. Markrute and the getting Lord Tancred into his power.  That is only to make a salve for herself.  The Duke would never have Mr. Markrute here if there was anything fishy about him.  Why, ducky, you know it is the only house left in England, almost, where they have only US!”

Tristram was ready for dinner in good time but he hesitated about knocking at his wife’s door.  If she did not let him know she was ready he would send Higgins to ask for her maid.

His eyes were shining with the pride he felt in her.  She had indeed come up to the scratch.  He had not believed it possible that she could have been so gracious, and he had not even guessed that she would condescend to speak so much.  And all his old friends had been so awfully nice about her and honestly admiring; except Arthur Elterton ­he had admired rather too much!

And then this exaltation somewhat died down.  It was after all but a very poor, outside show, when, in reality, he could not even knock at her door!

He wished now he had never let his pride hurl forth that ultimatum on the wedding night, because he would have to stick to it!  He could not make the slightest advance, and it did not look as if she meant to do so.  Tristram in an ordinary case when his deep feelings were not concerned would have known how to display a thousand little tricks for the allurement of a woman, would have known exactly how to cajole her, to give her a flower, and hesitate when he spoke her name ­and a number of useful things ­but he was too terribly in earnest to be anything but a real, natural man; that is, hurt from her coldness and diffident of himself, and iron-bound with pride.

And Zara at the other side of the door felt almost happy.  It was the first evening in her life she had ever dressed without some heavy burden of care.  Her self-protective, watchful instincts could rest for a while; these new relations were truly, not only seemingly, so kind.  The only person she immediately and instinctively disliked was Lady Highford who had gushed and said one or two bitter-sweet things which she had not clearly nor literally understood, but which, she felt, were meant to be hostile.

And her husband, Tristram!  It was plain to be seen every one loved him ­from the old Duke, to the old setter by the fire.  And how was it possible for them all to love a man, when ­and then her thoughts unconsciously turned to if ­he were capable of so base a thing as his marriage with her had been?  Was it possible there could be any mistake?  On the first opportunity she would question her uncle; and although she knew that gentleman would only tell her exactly as much as he wished her to know, that much would be the truth.

Dinner was to be at half-past eight.  She ought to be punctual, she knew; but it was all so wonderful, and refined, and old-world, in her charming room, she felt inclined to dawdle and look around.

It was a room as big as her mother’s had been, in the gloomy castle near Prague, but it was full of cozy touches ­beyond the great gilt state bed, which she admired immensely ­and with which she instinctively felt only the English ­and only such English ­know how to endow their apartments.

Then she roused herself.  She must dress.  Fortunately her hair did not take any time to twist up.

“Miladi is a dream!” Henriette exclaimed when at last she was ready. “Milor will be proud!”

And he was.

She sent Henriette to knock at his door ­his door in the passage ­not the one between their rooms! ­just on the stroke of half-past eight.  He was at that moment going to send Higgins on a like errand! and his sense of humor at the grotesqueness of the situation made him laugh a bitter laugh.

The two servants as the messengers! ­when he ought to have been in there himself, helping to fix on her jewels, and playing with her hair, and perhaps kissing exquisite bits of her shoulders when the maid was not looking, or fastening her dress!

Well, the whole thing was a ghastly farce that must be got through; he would take up politics, and be a wonderful landlord to the people at Wrayth; and somehow, he would get through with it, and no one should ever know, from him, of his awful mistake.

He hardly allowed himself to tell her she looked very beautiful as they walked along the great corridor.  She was all in deep sapphire-blue gauze, with no jewels on at all but the Duke’s splendid brooch.

That was exquisite of her, he appreciated that fine touch.  Indeed, he appreciated everything about her ­if she had known.

People were always more or less on time in this house, and after the silent hush of admiration caused by the bride’s entrance they all began talking and laughing, and none but Lady Highford and another woman were late.

And as Zara walked along the white drawing-room, on the old Duke’s arm, she felt that somehow she had got back to a familiar atmosphere, where she was at rest after long years of strife.

Lady Ethelrida had gone in with the bridegroom ­to-night everything was done with strict etiquette ­and on her left hand she had placed the bride’s uncle.  The new relations were to receive every honor, it seemed.  And Francis Markrute, as he looked round the table, with the perfection of its taste, and saw how everything was going on beautifully, felt he had been justified in his schemes.

Lady Anningford sat beyond Tristram, and often these two talked, so Lady Ethelrida had plenty of time, without neglecting him, to converse with her other interesting guest.

“I am so glad you like our old home, Mr. Markrute,” she said.  “To-morrow I will show you a number of my favorite haunts.  It seems sad, does it not, as so many people assert, that the times are trending to take all these dear, old things away from us, and divide them up?”

“It will be a very bad day for England when that time comes,” the financier said.  “If only the people could study evolution and the meaning of things there would not be any of this nonsensical class hatred.  The immutable law is that no one long retains any position unless he, or she, is suitable for it.  Nothing endures that is not harmonious.  It is because England is now out of harmony, that this seething is going on.  You and your race have been fitted for what you have held for hundreds of years; that is why you have stayed:  and your influence, and such as you, have made England great.”

“Then how do you account for the whole thing being now out of joint?” Lady Ethelrida asked.  “As my father and I and, as far as I know, numbers of us have remained just the same, and have tried as well as we can to do our duty to every one.”

“Have you ever studied the Laws of Lycurgus, Lady Ethelrida?” he asked.  And she shook her sleek, fine head.  “Well, they are worth glancing at, when you have time,” he went on.  “An immense value was placed upon discipline, and as long as it lasted in its iron simplicity the Spartans were the wonder of the then known world.  But after their conquest of Athens, when luxury poured in and every general wanted something for himself and forgot the good of the state, then their discipline went to pieces, and, so ­the whole thing.  And that, applied in a modern way, is what is happening to England.  All classes are forgetting their discipline, and, without fitting themselves for what they aspire to, they are trying to snatch from some other class.  And the whole thing is rotten with mawkish sentimentality, and false prudery, and abeyance of common sense.”

“Yes,” said Lady Ethelrida, much interested.

“Lycurgus went to the root of things,” the financier continued, “and made the people morally and physically healthy, and ruthlessly expunged the unfit ­not like our modern nonsense, which encourages science to keep, among the prospective parents for the future generation, all the most diseased.  Moral and physical balance and proportion were the ideas of the Spartans.  They would not have even been allowed to compete in the games, if they were misshapen.  And the analogy is, no one unfitted for a part ought to aspire to it, for the public good.  Any one has a right to scream, if he does not obtain it when he is fitted for it.”

“Yes, I see,” said Lady Ethelrida.  “Then what do you mean when you say every class is trying to snatch something from some other class?  Do you mean from the class above it?  Or what?  Because unless we, for instance ­technically speaking ­snatched from the King from whom could we snatch?”

The financier smiled.

“I said purposely, ‘some other class,’ instead of ‘some class above it,’ for this reason:  it is because a certain and ever-increasing number of your class, if I may say so, are snatching ­not, indeed, from the King ­but from all classes beneath them, manners and morals, and absence of ténue, and absence of pride ­things for which their class was not fitted.  They had their own vices formerly, which only hurt each individual and not the order, as a stain will spoil the look of a bit of machinery but will not upset its working powers like a piece of grit.  What they put into the machine now is grit.  And the middle classes are snatching what they think is gentility, and ridiculous pretenses to birth and breeding; and the lower classes are snatching everything they can get from the pitiful fall of the other two, and shouting that all men are equal, when, if you come down to the practical thing, the foreman of some ironworks, say ­where the opinions were purely socialistic, in the abstract ­would give the last joined stoker a sound trouncing for aspirations in his actual work above his capabilities; because he would know that if the stoker were then made foreman the machinery could not work.  The stokers of life should first fit themselves to be foremen before they shout.”

Then, as Lady Ethelrida looked very grave, and Francis Markrute was really a whimsical person, and seldom talked so seriously to women, he went on, smiling,

“The only really perfect governments in the world are those of the Bees, and Ants, because they are both ruled with ruthless discipline and no sentiment, and every individual knows his place!”

“I read once, somewhere, that it has been discovered,” said Lady Ethelrida gently ­she never laid down the law ­“that the reason why the wonderful Greeks came to an end was not really because their system of government was not a good one, but because the mosquitoes came and gave them malaria, and enervated them and made them feeble, and so they could not stand against the stronger peoples of the North.  Perhaps,” she went on, “England has got some moral malarial mosquitoes and the scientists have not yet discovered the proper means for their annihilation.”

Here Tristram who overheard this interrupted: 

“And it would not be difficult to give the noisome insects their English names, would it, Francis?  Some of them are in the cabinet.”

And the three laughed.  But Lady Ethelrida wanted to hear something more from her left-hand neighbor, so she said,

“Then the inference to be drawn from what you have said is ­we should aim at making conditions so that it is possible for every individual to have the chance to make himself practically ­not theoretically ­fit for anything his soul aspires to.  Is that it?”

“Absolutely in a nutshell, dear lady,” Francis Markrute said, and for a minute he looked into her eyes with such respectful, intense admiration that Lady Ethelrida looked away.