deal of attention last summer. Alicia must
certainly have considered the matter. And she is a young lady not
easily baffled."

"Baffled!" Mrs. Fotheringham laughed. "What can she do?"

"Well, it's true that Oliver seems to have got another idea in his head.
What do you think of that pretty child who came yesterday--the
Mallory girl?"

Mrs. Fotheringham hesitated, then said, coldly:

"I don't like discussing these things. Oliver has plenty of time before
him."

"If he is turning his thoughts in that quarter," persisted Lady Niton,
"I give him my blessing. Well bred, handsome, and well off--what's your
objection?"

Mrs. Fotheringham laughed impatiently. "Really, Lady Niton, I made no
objection."

"You don't like her!"

"I have only known her twenty-four hours. How can I have formed any
opinion about her?"

"No--you don't like her! I suppose you thought she talked stuff last
night?"

"Well, there can be no two opinions about that!" cried Mrs.
Fotheringham. "Her father seems to have filled her head with all sorts
of false Jingo notions, and I must say I wondered Oliver was so patient
with her."

Lady Niton glanced at the thin fanatical face of the speaker.

"Oliver had great difficulty in holding his own. She is no fool, and
you'll find it out, Isabel, if you try to argue her down--"

"I shouldn't dream of arguing with such a child!"

"Well, all I know is Ferrier seemed to admire her performance."

Mrs. Fotheringham paused a moment, then said, with harsh intensity:

"Men have not the same sense of responsibility."

"You mean their brains are befogged by a pretty face?"

"They don't put non-essentials aside, as we do. A girl like that, in
love with what she calls 'glory' and 'prestige,' is a dangerous and
demoralizing influence. That glorification of the Army is at the root of
half our crimes!"

Mrs. Fotheringham's pale skin had flushed till it made one red with her
red hair. Lady Niton looked at her with mingled amusement and
irritation. She wondered why men married such women as Isabel
Fotheringham. Certainly Ned Fotheringham himself--deceased some three
years before this date--had paid heavily for his mistake; especially
through the endless disputes which had arisen between his children and
his second wife--partly on questions of religion, partly on this matter
of the Army. Mrs. Fotheringham was an agnostic; her stepsons, the
children of a devout mother, were churchmen. Influenced, moreover, by