e market. She liked to think that he was
not a woman's man. He gave her his version of some recent transactions
that had been commented on in the newspapers, and she was indignant over
the insinuations about him. It was the price, he said, that everybody
had to pay for success. Why shouldn't he, she reflected, make money?
Everybody would if they could, and no one knew how generous he was. If
she had been told that the family of Jerry Hollowell thought of him in
the same way, she would have said that there was a world-wide difference
in the two men. Insensibly she was losing the old standards she used to
apply to success. Here in Lenox, in this prosperous, agreeable world,
there was nothing to remind her of them.

In her enjoyment of this existence without care, I do not suppose it
occurred to her to examine if her ideals had been lowered. Sometimes
Henderson had a cynical, mocking tone about the world, which she
reproved with a caress, but he was always tolerant and good-natured. If
he had told her that he acted upon the maxim that every man and woman
has his and her price she would have been shocked, but she was getting
to make allowances that she would not have made before she learned
to look at the world through his eyes. She could see that the Brandon
circle was over-scrupulous. Her feeling of this would have been
confirmed if she had known that when her aunt read the letter announcing
a month's visit to the Eschelles in Newport, she laid it down with a
sigh.

XVI

Uncle Jerry was sitting on the piazza of the Ocean House, absorbed
in the stock reports of a New York journal, answering at random the
occasional observations of his wife, who filled up one of the spacious
chairs near him--a florid woman, with diamonds in her ears, who had the
resolute air of enjoying herself. It was an August Newport morning,
when there is a salty freshness in the air, but a temperature that
discourages exertion. A pony phaeton dashed by containing two ladies.
The ponies were cream-colored, with flowing manes and tails, and harness
of black and gold; the phaeton had yellow wheels with a black body;
the diminutive page with folded arms, on the seat behind, wore a black
jacket and yellow breeches. The lady who held the yellow silk reins was
a blonde with dark eyes. As they flashed by, the lady on the seat with
her bowed, and Mr. Hollowell returned the salute.

"Who's that?" asked Mrs. Hollowell.

"That's Mrs. Henderson."

"An