“That’s it, exactly,” cried her mother. “That’s the way it affects anyone who gets possessed by it. If you married under a spell of that sort you’d wonder at yourself afterwards—when you had got enough.”

“But—I wouldn’t ‘get enough,’ as you call it.”

“Oh, yes, you would. They always do.”

“Always?”

Mrs. Richmond shifted ground. “You will never get your father to consent—never!”

“That’s the least of my troubles,” said Beatrice confidently. “The only question is: How could he help me to bring over Roger?”

“How can you be so silly, child!” exclaimed the mother. “That fellow would jump at you just as soon as he found your father consenting.” Mrs. Richmond smiled. “And when he did jump at you— Oh, I know you so well! You’d laugh at him and turn your back on him then.”

“I wonder,” said Beatrice absently. “I wonder.”

[122]“I’m sure of it,” cried her mother with energy.

[122]

“I—don’t—know,” replied the girl. “It isn’t a bit like me to marry out of my own class. At first I laughed at myself for even imagining I’d really marry Chang. I was fascinated by him—everything he said and did—and the way he said or did it—the way his hair grew—the way his clothes fit—the way he blew smoke out of his mouth—the way he held his palette—and his long brushes— You see, mother, I was infatuated with him. Isn’t he splendid to look at?”

“He certainly is strikingly handsome,” admitted Mrs. Richmond. “But hardly more so than Peter.”

“Oh, mother!” laughed out Beatrice. “You are not that undiscriminating. There’s all the difference between them that there is between—between a god and a mere mortal.” Contrasting the two men seemed to fire the girl afresh. “Yes, I do want Chang,” she cried. “I’d be enormously proud to have such a man to exhibit as my husband.”

“But think, my dear! He’s nobody!”

“You heard d’Artois——”

“Yes—but if he were to try to marry d’Artois’s sister——”

“I know. I understand,” said Beatrice impatiently. “I wish he were a real somebody. Still, he probably comes of as 

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