or near them except hirelings and dependents. The
habit of power of any kind breeds intolerance of equality of level
intercourse. This is held in check, often held entirely in check,
where the power is based upon mental superiority; for the very
superiority of the mind keeps alive the sense of humor and the sense of
proportion. Not so the habit of money power. For money power is
brutal, mindless. And as it is the only real power in any and all
aristocracies, aristocracies are inevitably brutal and brutalizing.

If Jane had been poor, or had remained a few years longer--until her
character was better set--under the restraining influence of her
unfrilled and unfrillable father, her passion for power, for
superiority would probably have impelled her to develop her mind into a
source of power and position. Fate abruptly gave her the speediest and
easiest means to power known in our plutocratic civilization. She
would have had to be superhuman in beauty of character or a genius in
mind to have rejected the short and easy way to her goal and struggled
on in the long and hard--and doubtful--way.

She did not herself appreciate the change within herself. She fancied
she was still what she had been two weeks before. For as yet nothing
had occurred to enable her to realize her changed direction, her
changed view of life. Thus, she was still thinking of Victor Dorn as
she had thought of him; and she was impatient to see him. She was now
free FREE! She could, without consulting anybody, have what she
wanted. And she wanted Victor Dorn.

She had dropped from her horse and with her arm through the bridle was
strolling along one of the quieter roads which Victor often took in his
rambles. It was a tonic October day, with floods of sunshine upon the
gorgeous autumnal foliage, never more gorgeous than in that fall of the
happiest alternations of frost and warmth. She heard the pleasant
rustle of quick steps in the fallen leaves that carpeted the byroad.
She knew it was he before she glanced; and his first view of her face
was of its beauty enhanced by a color as delicate and charming as that
in the leaves about them.

She looked at his hands in which he was holding something half
concealed. "What is it?" she said, to cover her agitation.

He opened his hands a little wider. "A bird," said he. "Some hunter
has broken its wing. I'm taking it to Charlton for repairs and a fair
start for its winter down South."

H