p under any experience to which
a human being can be subjected. The general in pajamas--of the finest
silk and of pigeon's-egg blue with a vast gorgeous monogram on the
pocket--was more grotesque, rather than more repellent, than the
general in morning or evening attire. Also he--that is, his expert
staff of providers of luxury--had arranged for the bride a series of
the most ravishing sensations in whisking her, like the heroine of an
Arabian Night's tale, from straitened circumstances to the very
paradise of luxury.

The general's ideas on the subject of woman were old fashioned, of the
hard-shell variety. Woman was made for luxury, and luxury was made for
woman. His woman must be the most divinely easeful of the luxurious.
At all times she must be fit and ready for any and every sybaritic idea
that might enter her husband's head--and other purpose she had none.
When she was not directly engaged in ministering to his joy she must be
busy preparing herself for his next call upon her. A woman was a
luxury, was the luxury of luxuries, must have and must use to their
uttermost all capacities for gratifying his senses and his vanity.
Alone with him, she must make him constantly feel how rich and rare and
expensive a prize he had captured. When others were about, she must be
constantly making them envy and admire him for having exclusive rights
in such wonderful preserves. All this with an inflexible devotion to
the loftiest ideals of chastity.

But the first realizations of her husband's notions as to women were
altogether pleasant. As she entered the automobile in which they went
to the private car in the special train that took them to New York and
the steamer--as she entered that new and prodigally luxurious
automobile, she had a first, keen sense of her changed position. Then
there was the superb private car--her car, since she was his wife--and
there was the beautiful suite in the magnificent steamer. And at every
instant menials thrusting attentions upon her, addressing her as if she
were a queen, revealing in their nervous tones and anxious eyes their
eagerness to please, their fear of displeasing. And on the steamer,
from New York to Cherbourg, she was never permitted to lose sight of
the material splendors that were now hers. All the servants, all the
passengers, reminded her by their looks, their tones. At Paris, in the
hotel, in the restaurants, in the shops--especially in the shops--those
snobbish