great
compensation for such loss in the feeling of freedom to pursue a career
that is more and more agreeable. And I had to confess, when occasionally
I saw Margaret during that winter, that she did not need us. Why should
she? Did not the city offer her everything that she desired? And where
in the world are beauty, and gayety with a touch of daring, and a
magnificent establishment better appreciated? I do not know what
criterion newspaper notoriety is of social prestige, but Mrs. Rodney
Henderson's movements were as faithfully chronicled as if she had been
a visiting princess or an actress of eccentric proclivities. Her name
appeared as patroness of all the charities, the balls, the soirees,
musical and literary, and if it did not appear in a list of the persons
at any entertainment, one might suspect that the affair lacked the
cachet of the best society. I suppose the final test of one's importance
is to have all the details of one's wardrobe spread before the public.
Judged by this, Margaret's career in New York was phenomenal. Even our
interested household could not follow her in all the changing splendor
of her raiment. In time even Miss Forsythe ceased to read all these
details, but she cut them out, deposited them with other relics in a
sort of mortuary box of the child and the maiden. I used to wonder if,
in the Brandon attitude of mind at this period, there were not just
a little envy of such unclouded prosperity. It is so much easier to
forgive a failure than a success.

In the spring the Hendersons went abroad. The resolution to go may have
been sudden, for Margaret wrote of it briefly, and had not time to
run up and say good-by. The newspapers said that the trip was taken on
account of Mrs. Henderson's health; that it was because Henderson needed
rest from overwork; that he found it convenient to be away for a time,
pending the settlement of certain complications. There were ugly stories
afloat, but they were put in so many forms, and followed by so many
different sorts of denial, and so much importance was attached to
every word Henderson uttered, and every step he took, that the general
impression of his far-reaching sagacity and Napoleonic command of
fortune was immensely raised. Nothing is more significant of our
progress than the good-humored deference of the world to this sort of
success. It is said that the attraction of gravitation lessens according
to the distance from the earth, and there seems to