ter kept out of her way. Anna was subject to prolonged fits of chilly
silence. Susie used, at such times, to think regretfully of the cheerful
Dobbs days, of their frank and congenial vulgarity.

When Anna was eighteen, Susie's prospects brightened for a time. Doors
that had been shut ever since she married, opened before her on her
appearing with such a pretty _debutante_ under her wing, and she could
enjoy the reflected glory of Anna's little triumphs. And then, without
any apparent reason, Anna had altered so strangely, and had disappointed
every one's expectations; never encouraging the right man, never ready
to do as she was told, exasperatingly careless on all matters of vital
importance, and ending by showing symptoms of freezing into something of
the same philosophical state as Peter. Their mother had been German----a
lady-in-waiting to one of the German princesses; and their father had
met her and married her while he was secretary at the English Embassy in
St. Petersburg. And Susie, who had heard of German philosophy and German
stolidity, and despised them both with all her heart, concluded that the
German strain was accountable for everything about Peter and Anna that
was beyond her comprehension; and sometimes, when Peter was more than
usually wise and unapproachable, would call him Herr Schopenhauer--which
had an immediate effect of producing a silence that lasted for weeks;
for not only did he like her least when she was playful, but he had, as
a matter of fact, read a great deal of Schopenhauer, and was uneasily
conscious that it had not been good for him.

While Peter fished, and meditated on the vanity of human wishes at
Estcourt, Anna, with rare exceptions, was wherever Susie was, and Susie
was wherever it was fashionable to be. For a week or two in the summer,
for a day or two at Easter, they went down to Devonshire; and Anna might
wander about the old house and grounds as she chose, and feel how much
better she had loved it in its tumble-down state, the state she had
known as a child, when her mother lived there and was happy. Everything
was aggressively spruce now, indoors and out. Susie's money and Susie's
taste had rubbed off all the mellowness and all the romance. Anna was
glad to leave it again, and be taken to Marienbad, or any place where
there was royalty, for Susie loved royalty. But what a life it was,
going round year after year with Susie! London, Devonshire, Marienbad,
Scotland, London a