rights" of women, and
then in a brief, blunt fashion that would have exasperated the
fast-emerging sex most terribly, he nevertheless respected the rights
of every human creature most scrupulously. Though he had the private
appreciation of the unmistakable good points of the harem-seclusion
shared by every healthy male, he would never have shut Margarita into
a New York house or a honeymoon-island against her will, and I think
he was too proud to reason with her on the only lines open to him. I
think, too, that his quiet refusal to take any strong measures may
have been based, partly, on the full appreciation of the risk he ran
in marrying such a bundle of possibilities as Margarita. One of the
greatest passions that ever (I firmly believe) mated two people had
whirled him out of the conventional current of his life, and because
it had, in its course, brought him into the rapids, he was enough of a
man to set his teeth and take it quietly, knowing that when he left
the calm, green-bordered stream for the adventure of flood tide, he
did it with his eyes open--a grown man. Or so, at least, I take it
that he reasoned: he acted as if he had.

Again, it would have been difficult for me to discuss the matter for
another reason than Roger's perfectly characteristic reserve. Much as
I regretted that this issue should have arisen in Roger's household,
like Sue Paynter I had a secret sympathy with Margarita. Roger was
never fond of the stage, and I was. He preferred chamber-music and
symphony to opera, and was never deeply sensible to the solo voice,
though a good critic of it. The glamour of the stage--that lime-light
that has eternally dazzled the sons of Adam--had little effect upon
him: he was the last man in the world to marry an actress. Now, I was
not. Judie, the naughty creature, had once her charm for me. I have
stood in a crowd to see the Jersey Lily, and the Queen of English
comediennes could have had me for a turn of her thick lashes--before I
knew Margarita. My paternal grandmother was part French, and I have
always observed that a mixture of blood predisposes its inheritors to
dramatic triumphs--or enjoyments, if no more.

So he dug at his canal and Margarita practised her Jewel Song (it was
a shade high for her: she was not a pure soprano, but had one of those
flexible mezzos that tempt their trainers to all sorts of
_tours-de-force_) and Dolledge tended Mary and Miss Jencks developed
Caliban.

The good woman w