!"

"Who else? We-we don't know anybody in New York. And I wanted you to be
proud of me. I've tried so hard and--and sometimes you don't even look
at my gowns, and say whether you like them and they are all for you."

This argument, at least, did not fail of results, combined as it was
with a hint of tears in Honora's voice. Its effect upon Howard was
peculiar--he was at once irritated, disarmed, and softened. He put
down his cigarette--and Honora was on his knee! He could not deny her
attractions.

"How could you be so cruel, Howard?" she asked.

"You know you wouldn't like me to be a slattern. It was my own idea to
save money--I had a long talk about economy one day with Mrs. Holt. And
you act as though you had such a lot of it when we're in town for dinner
with these Rivington people. You always have champagne. If--if you're
poor, you ought to have told me so, and I shouldn't have ordered another
dinner gown."

"You've ordered another dinner gown!"

"Only a little one," said Honora, "the simplest kind. But if you're
poor--"

She had made a discovery--to reflect upon his business success was to
touch a sensitive nerve.

"I'm not poor," he declared. "But the bottom's dropped out of the
market, and even old Wing is economizing. We'll have to put on the
brakes for awhile, Honora."

It was shortly after this that Honora departed on the first of her three
visits to St. Louis.

CHAPTER IV. THE NEW DOCTRINE

This history concerns a free and untrammelled--and, let us add,
feminine--spirit. No lady is in the least interesting if restricted and
contented with her restrictions,--a fact which the ladies of our nation
are fast finding out. What would become of the Goddess of Liberty? And
let us mark well, while we are making these observations, that Liberty
is a goddess, not a god, although it has taken us in America over a
century to realize a significance in the choice of her sex. And--another
discovery!--she is not a haus frau. She is never domiciled, never
fettered. Even the French, clever as they are, have not conceived her:
equality and fraternity are neither kith nor kin of hers, and she laughs
at them as myths--for she is a laughing lady. She alone of the three
is real, and she alone is worshipped for attributes which she does not
possess. She is a coquette, and she is never satisfied. If she were, she
would not be Liberty: if she were, she would not be worshipped of men,
but despised. If they understo