And, stripped clean of the glamour of her wealth, she rose before him—­her nose that was red and queer in the mornings; her little personal habits that got on the nerves, especially a covert self-infatuated smile that flitted over her face at any compliment, however obviously perfunctory; her way of talking about every trivial thing she did—­and what did she do that was not trivial?—­as if some diarist ought to take it down for the delight of ages to come.  As Ross looked at the new-created realistic image of her, he was amazed.  “Why, I’ve always disliked her!” he cried.  “I’ve been lying to myself.  I am too low for words,” he groaned.  “Was there ever such a sneaking cur?” Yes, many a one, full as unconscious of his own qualities as he himself had been until that moment; nor could he find consolation in the fact that he had company, plenty of company, and it of the world’s most “gentlemanly” and most “ladylike.”

The young man who left that wood, the young man whom Arthur saw that day, had in his heart a consciousness, an ache, of lonely poverty that dress and dogcarts and social position could do little—­something, but little—­to ease.

* * * * *

He stopped at Chicago and sent word to Windrift that he was ill—­not seriously ill, but in such a state that he thought it best to take care of himself, with the wedding so near.  Theresa was just as well pleased to have him away, as it gave her absolute freedom to plan and to superintend her triumph.  For the wedding was to be her individual and exclusive triumph, with even Ross as part of the background—­the most conspicuous part, but still simply background for her personal splendor.

Old Howland—­called Bill until his early career as a pedlar and keeper of a Cheap Jack bazaar was forgotten and who, after the great fire, which wiped out so many pasts and purified and pedigreed Chicago’s present aristocracy, called himself William G. Howland, merchant prince, had, in his ideal character for a wealth-chaser, one weakness—­a doting fondness for his daughter.  When she came into the world, the doctors told him his wife would have no more children; thereafter his manner was always insulting, and usually his tone and words, whenever and of whatever he spoke to her.  Women were made by the Almighty solely to bear children to men; his woman had been made to bear him a son.  Now that she would never have a son, she was of no use, and it galled him that he could find no plausibly respectable excuse for casting her off, as he cast off worn-out servants in his business.  But as the years passed and he saw the various varieties of thorns into which the sons of so many of his fellow-princes developed, he became reconciled to Theresa—­not to his wife.  That unfortunate woman, the daughter of a drunkard and partially deranged by illness and by grief over her husband’s brutality toward her, became—­or rather, was made by her insistent doctor—­what would have been called a drunkard, had she not been the wife of a prince.  Her “dipsomania” took an unaggressive form, as she was by nature gentle and sweet; she simply used to shut herself in and drink until she would cry herself into a timid, suppressed hysteria.  So secret was she that Theresa never knew the truth about these “spells.”