ked."

"A woman who would leave a home like this," said Mademoiselle, "and a
distinguished family. Position. Wealth. For a brute who beats her. And
desert her child also!"

"Does he really beat her? I don't quite believe that, Mademoiselle."

"It is not a subject for a young girl."

"Because really," Lily went on, "there is something awfully big about a
woman who will stick to one man like that. I am quite sure I would bite
a man who struck me, but--suppose I loved him terribly--" her voice
trailed off. "You see, dear, I have seen a lot of brutality lately. An
army camp isn't a Sunday school picnic. And I like strong men, even if
they are brutal sometimes."

Mademoiselle carefully cut a thread.

"This--you were speaking to Ellen of a young man. Is he a--what you term
brutal?"

Suddenly Lily laughed.

"You poor dear!" she said. "And mother, too, of course! You're afraid
I'm in love with Willy Cameron. Don't you know that if I were, I'd
probably never even mention his name?"

"But is he brutal?" persisted Mademoiselle.

"I'll tell you about him. He is a thin, blond young man, tall and a bit
lame. He has curly hair, and he puts pomade on it to take the curl out.
He is frightfully sensitive about not getting in the army, and he is
perfectly sweet and kind, and as brutal as a June breeze. You'd better
tell mother. And you can tell her he isn't in love with me, or I with
him. You see, I represent what he would call the monied aristocracy of
America, and he has the most fearful ideas about us."

"An anarchist, then?" asked. Mademoiselle, extremely comforted.

"Not at all. He says he belongs to the plain people. The people in
between. He is rather oratorical about them. He calls them the backbone
of the country."

Mademoiselle relaxed. She had been too long in old Anthony's house
to consider very seriously the plain people. Her world, like Anthony
Cardew's, consisted of the financial aristocracy, which invested money
in industries and drew out rich returns, while providing employment for
the many; and of the employees of the magnates, who had recently shown
strong tendencies toward upsetting the peace of the land, and had given
old Anthony one or two attacks of irritability when it was better to go
up a rear staircase if he were coming down the main one.

"Wait a moment," said Lily, suddenly. "I have a picture of him
somewhere."

She disappeared, and Mademoiselle heard her rummaging through the
drawers of he