troy just one more man, and
that man the Chauffeur?

"Once, when the Chauffeur was away fishing, she begged me to kill him.
With tears in her eyes she begged me to kill him. But he was a strong
and violent man, and I was afraid. Afterwards, I talked with him. I
offered him my horse, my pony, my dogs, all that I possessed, if he
would give Vesta to me. And he grinned in my face and shook his head. He
was very insulting. He said that in the old days he had been a servant,
had been dirt under the feet of men like me and of women like Vesta, and
that now he had the greatest lady in the land to be servant to him and
cook his food and nurse his brats. 'You had your day before the plague,'
he said; 'but this is my day, and a damned good day it is. I wouldn't
trade back to the old times for anything.' Such words he spoke, but they
are not his words. He was a vulgar, low-minded man, and vile oaths fell
continually from his lips.

"Also, he told me that if he caught me making eyes at his woman he'd
wring my neck and give her a beating as well. What was I to do? I was
afraid. He was a brute. That first night, when I discovered the camp,
Vesta and I had great talk about the things of our vanished world. We
talked of art, and books, and poetry; and the Chauffeur listened and
grinned and sneered. He was bored and angered by our way of speech which
he did not comprehend, and finally he spoke up and said: 'And this is
Vesta Van Warden, one-time wife of Van Warden the Magnate--a high and
stuck-up beauty, who is now my squaw. Eh, Professor Smith, times is
changed, times is changed. Here, you, woman, take off my moccasins,
and lively about it. I want Professor Smith to see how well I have you
trained.'

"I saw her clench her teeth, and the flame of revolt rise in her face.
He drew back his gnarled fist to strike, and I was afraid, and sick at
heart. I could do nothing to prevail against him. So I got up to go,
and not be witness to such indignity. But the Chauffeur laughed and
threatened me with a beating if I did not stay and behold. And I sat
there, perforce, by the campfire on the shore of Lake Temescal, and
saw Vesta, Vesta Van Warden, kneel and remove the moccasins of that
grinning, hairy, apelike human brute.

"--Oh, you do not understand, my grandsons. You have never known
anything else, and you do not understand.

"'Halter-broke and bridle-wise,' the Chauffeur gloated, while she
performed that dreadful, menial task. 'A trifl