, comments
that we used to make freely on the conduct of conspicuous persons, now
carried condemnation that took a personal color. The doubtful means of
making money, the pace of fashionable life, the wasteful prodigality
of the time, we instinctively shrank from speaking of before Margaret.
Perhaps we did her injustice. She was never more gracious, never more
anxious to please. I fancied that there was at times something pathetic
in her wistful desire for our affection and esteem. She was always
a generous girl, and I have no doubt she felt repelled at the quiet
rejection of her well-meant efforts to play the Lady Bountiful. There
were moments during her brief visit when her face was very sad, but no
doubt her predominant feeling escaped her in regard to the criticism
quoted from somebody on Jerry Hollowell's methods and motives. "People
are becoming very self-righteous," she said.

My wife said to me that she was reminded of the gentle observation of
Carmen Eschelle, "The people I cannot stand are those who pretend they
are not wicked." If one does not believe in anybody his cynicism has
usually a quality of contemptuous bitterness in it. One brought up as
Margaret had been could not very well come to her present view of
life without a touch of this quality, but her disposition was so
lovely--perhaps there is no moral quality in a good temper--that change
of principle could not much affect it. And then she was never more
winning; perhaps her beauty had taken on a more refined quality from her
illness abroad; perhaps it was that indefinable knowledge of the world,
which is recognized as well in dress as in manner, which increased her
attractiveness. This was quite apart from the fact that she was not so
sympathetically companionable to us as she once was, and it was this
very attractiveness of the worldly sort, I fancied, that pained her
aunt, and marked the separateness of their sympathies.

How could it be otherwise than that our interests should diverge? It was
a very busy summer with the Hendersons. They were planning the New York
house, which had been one of the objects of Henderson's early ambition.
The sea-air had been prescribed for Margaret, and Henderson had built a
steam-yacht, the equipment and furnishing of which had been a prolific
newspaper topic. It was greatly admired by yachtsmen for the beauty of
its lines and its speed, and pages were written about its sumptuous and
comfortable interior. I never sa