rency blotted with
unconvincing texts, then rushing off to found a celibate order--from
Margarita, who was no more celibate that Ceres the bountiful!

Ah, well, the Way is a Mystery, as Alif said, and who am I that I
should expect to solve it, when kings and philosophers have failed? At
any rate, I have my pictures safe.

CHAPTER XXIX

FATE GRIPS HER LANDING NET

She sang her French roles in Germany and three times in _Siegfried_,
and was getting ready for Paris again when a long letter from Alice
Carter besought us all to come to Boston as quickly as might be. Old
Madam Bradley had been stricken suddenly with paralysis. One side of
her body was beyond movement, but the other was as yet unimpaired, and
by a series of questions they had found out that she wanted to see
Roger--and Roger's wife--before she died. Nor was this enough, for the
proud, afflicted old creature, when their ingenuity had failed, traced
left-handed upon a slate, with infinite effort, my initials: evidently
she wanted to make her peace in this world before she left it.

Margarita demurred a little and I, for one, should be the last to
blame her. Greater knowledge of the world and especially her
acquaintance with Walter Carter, who did not hesitate to blame his
mother-in-law, had taught her to appreciate Madam Bradley's neglect,
and her feeling for death had none of the sacred respect custom breeds
in us--at least outwardly. She had just begun to study _Lohengrin_ and
a charming week at a French _chateau_ with Sue had given her a taste
for the society she liked and ornamented so well. She suggested that
Roger and I should go alone, leaving her with Sue, and we (Sue and I)
trembled for the outcome, for she seemed rather determined, to us.

But we had not counted sufficiently on Roger's sense of what was right
and just. What might be considered a slighting of his personal claims
he could endure patiently; what was due to his family and position he
could not ignore. Quietly he cancelled Margarita's early contracts,
secured passage and dismissed the servants.

"Be ready to sail on Saturday, _cherie_," he said, "I want my mother
to see you very much, and Mary, too."

"Very well," said Margarita, round-eyed and breathing fast, and
Barbara Jencks clapped her hands noiselessly. She adored Roger, as did
all his servants and dependents, for that matter.

We reached Boston with the first early snows, and though his mother's
face was set and he