ions he would snarl at her malignantly. There was no talk of
the return of the money or of the payment of interest on it, nor did the
books show an entry of any sort. To rid herself of the anxieties that
accompanied her through the years, it would have been necessary for
Theresa to believe in helpful fairies. And she did not believe in them.

Nature had given her neither gaiety nor gentleness; under the pressure
of this insoluble mystery she became ill-tempered as a wife and moody as
a mother.

When there were no customers in the shop she would pick up books quite
at random and read in them. Sometimes it was a novel dealing with crime,
sometimes a garrulous tract dealing with secret vices. Such things were
needed to attract a public that regarded the buying of books as a sinful
waste. Without special pleasure, and with a morose sort of thirst for
information, she read revelations of court life and the printed
betrayals of all kinds of spies, adventurers, and rogues. Quite
unconsciously she came to judge the world to which she had no real
access according to these books which offered her as truth the issues of
sick and pestilential minds.

But as the years went on, and prosperity raised Jason Philip definitely
into the merchant class, he abandoned the shadier side of his business.
He was a man who knew his age and who unfurled his sails when he was
sure of a favourable wind. He entrusted his ship more and more to the
ever swelling current of the political parties of the proletariat, and
hoped to find his profit where, in a half-hearted way, his convictions
lay. He exhibited a rebel's front to the middle-classes, and held out a
hand of unctuous fellowship to the toiler. He knew how to make his way!
Many an insignificant shop-keeper had been known to exchange his musty
rooms for a villa in the suburbs, to furnish it pretentiously, and to
send his sons on trips abroad.

In these days, too, the old imperial city awoke from its romantic
slumber. Once the sublime churches, the lovely curves of the bridges,
and the quaint gables of the houses had formed an artistic whole. Now
they became mere remnants. Castle and walls and mighty towers were ruins
of an age of dreams now fortunately past. Iron rails were laid on the
streets and rusty chains with strangely shaped lanterns were removed
from the opening of narrow streets. Factories and smoke-stacks
surrounded the venerable and picturesque city as an iron frame might
surround t