“They went to England and bought a castle that had never known the profane touch of a plumber, having been built in the time of the first earl or something, and after that they had to get another castle in France, account of little Angus having a weak throat that Ellabelle got another gentlemanly specialist to find out about him; and so it went, with Ellabelle hovering on the very edge of a nervous breakdown, and taking up art and literature at different spots where fashion gathered, going to Italy and India’s coral strand to study the dead past, and so forth, and learning to address her inferiors in a refined and hostile manner, with little Angus having a maid and a governess and something new the matter with him every time Ellabelle felt the need of a change.

“At first Angus used to make two trips back every year, then he cut them down to one, and at last he’d only come every two or three years, having his hirelings come to him instead.  He’d branched out a lot, even at that distance, getting into copper and such, and being president of banks and trusts here and there and equitable cooperative companies and all such things that help to keep the lower classes trimmed proper.  For a whole lot of years I didn’t see either of ’em.  I sort of lost track of the outfit, except as I’d see the name of Angus heading a new board of directors after the reorganization, or renting the north half of Scotland for the sage-hen and coyote shooting, or whatever the game is there.  Of course it took genius to do this with Angus, and I’ve never denied that Ellabelle has it.  I bet there wasn’t a day in all them years that Angus didn’t believe himself to be a stubborn, domineering brute, riding roughshod over the poor little wreck of a woman.  If he didn’t it wasn’t for want of his wife accusing him of it in so many words—­and perhaps a few more.

“I guess she got to feeling so sure of herself she let her work coarsen up.  Anyway, when little Angus come to be eighteen his pa shocked her one day by saying he must go back home to some good college.  ’You mean England,’ says Ellabelle, they being at the time on some other foreign domains.

“‘I do not,’ says Angus, ’nor Sweden nor Japan nor East Africa.  I mean the United States.’  ‘You’re jesting,’ says she.  ‘You wrong me cruelly,’ says Angus.  ’The lad’s eighteen and threatening to be a foreigner.  Should he stay here longer it would set in his blood.’  ’Remember his weak throat,’ says Ellabelle.  ‘I did,’ says Angus.  ’To save you trouble I sent for a specialist to look him over.  He says the lad has never a flaw in his throat.  We’ll go soon.’

“Of course it was dirty work on the part of Angus, getting to the specialist first, but she saw she had to take it.  She knew it was like the time they agreed on his name—­she could see the Scotch blood leaping in his veins.  So she gave in with never a mutter that Angus could hear.  That’s part of the genius of Ellabelle, knowing when she can and when she positively cannot, and making no foolish struggle in the latter event.