ody her confidant when the fit was on her--"I do things because I
don't care. Mrs. Henderson does the same, but she does care."

Margaret would be a sadder woman, but not a better woman, when the
time came that she did not care. She had come to the point of accepting
Henderson's methods of overreaching the world, and was tempering the
result with private liberality. Those were hypocrites who criticised
him; those were envious who disparaged him; the sufficient ethics of
the world she lived in was to be successful and be agreeable. And it is
difficult to condemn a person who goes with the general opinion of
his generation. Carmen was under no illusions about Henderson, or the
methods and manners of which she was a part. "Why pretend?" she said.
"We are all bad together, and I like it. Uncle Jerry is the easiest
person to get on with." I remember a delightful, wicked old baroness
whom I met in my youth stranded in Geneva on short allowance--European
resorts are full of such characters. "My dear," she said, "why shouldn't
I renege? Why shouldn't men cheat at cards? It's all in the game. Don't
we all know we are trying to deceive each other and get the best of each
other? I stopped pretending after Waterloo. Fighting for the peace of
Europe! Bah! We are all fighting for what we can get."

So the Catachoobee Henderson Hall was dedicated, and Mr. Henderson got
great credit out of it.

"It's a noble deed, Mr. Henderson," Carmen remarked, when they were at
dinner on the car the day of their departure. "But"--in an aside to
her host--"I advise the lambs in Wall Street to look alive at your next
deal."

XX

We can get used to anything. Morgan says that even the New England
summer is endurable when you learn to dress warmly enough. We come to
endure pain and loss with equanimity; one thing and another drops out of
our lives-youth, for instance, and sometimes enthusiasm--and still we go
on with a good degree of enjoyment. I do not say that Miss Forsythe was
quite the same, or that a certain zest of life and spring had not gone
out of the little Brandon neighborhood.

As the months and the years went by we saw less and less of
Margaret--less and less, that is, in the old way. Her rare visits were
perfunctory, and gave little satisfaction to any of us; not that she was
ungracious or unkindly, but simply because the things we valued in life
were not the same. There was no doubt that any of us were welcome at the
Henderson