“Best society!” said Ulfar, pettishly. “I am going to America. There, I hope, I shall hear nothing about it.”

“America is so truly admirable. Why was it put in such an out-of-the-way place? You have to sail three thousand miles to get to it,” pouted Sarah.

“All things worth having are put out of the way,” replied Ulfar.

“Yes,” sighed Sarah. “What an admirable story is that of the serpent and the apple!”

134

“Come, Ulfar!” said Lady Redware, “do try to be agreeable. You used to be so delightful! Was he not, Sarah?”

“Was he? I have forgotten, Elizabeth. Since that time a great deal of water has run into the sea.”

“If you want an ill-natured opinion about yourself, by all means go to a woman for it.” And Ulfar enunciated this dictum with a very scornful shrug of his shoulders.

“Ulfar!”

“It is so, Elizabeth.”

“Never mind him, dear!” said Sarah. “I do not. And I have noticed that the men who give bad characters to women have usually much worse ones themselves. I think Ulfar is quite ready for American society and its liberal ideas.” And Sarah drew her shawl into her throat, and looked defiantly at Ulfar.

“The Americans are all socialists. I have read that, Ulfar. You know what these liberal ideas come to,—always socialism.”

135

“Do not be foolish, Elizabeth. Socialism never comes from liberality of thought: it is always a bequest of tyranny.”

“Ulfar, when are you going to be really nice and good again?”

“I do not know, Elizabeth.”

“Ulfar is a standing exception to the rule that when things are at their worst they must mend. Ulfar, lately, is always at his worst, and he never mends.”

There was really some excuse for Ulfar; he was suffering keenly, and neither of the two women cared to recognize the fact. He had just returned from Italy with his father’s remains, and after their burial he had permitted Elizabeth to carry him off with her to Redware. In reality the neighbourhood of Aspatria 

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