large enough; they were always adding to it—­awning, a ballroom, some architectural whim or another.  Margaret had a fancy for a cottage at Bar Harbor, but they rarely went there.  They had an interest in Tuxedo; they belonged to an exclusive club on Jekyl Island.  They passed one winter yachting among the islands in the eastern Mediterranean; a part of another sailing from one tropical paradise to another in the West Indies.  If there was anything that money could not obtain, it seemed to be a place where they could rest in serene peace with themselves.

I used to wonder whether Margaret was satisfied with her husband’s reputation.  Perhaps she mistook the newspaper homage, the notoriety, for public respect.  She saw his influence and his power.  She saw that he was feared, and of course hated, by some—­the unsuccessful—­but she saw the terms he was on with his intimates, due to the fact that everybody admitted that whatever Henderson was in “a deal,” privately he was a deuced good fellow.

Was this an ideal married life?  Henderson’s selfishness was fully developed, and I could see that he was growing more and more hard.  Would Margaret not have felt it, if she also had not been growing hard, and accustomed to regard the world in his unbelieving way?  No, there was sharpness occasionally between them, tiffs and disagreements.  He was a great deal away from home, and she plunged into a life of her own, which had all the external signs of enjoyment.  I doubt if he was ever very selfish where she was concerned, and love can forgive almost any conduct where there is personal indulgence.  I had a glimpse of the real state of things in a roundabout way.  Henderson loved his wife and was proud of her, and he was not unkind, but he might have been a brute and tied her up to the bedpost, and she never would have shown by the least sign to the world that she was not the most happy of wives.

When the Earl of Chisholm was in this country it was four years after Margaret’s marriage—­we naturally saw a great deal of him.  The young fellow whom we liked so much had become a man, with a graver demeanor, and I thought a trace of permanent sadness in his face; perhaps it was only the responsibility of his position, or, as Morgan said, the modern weight that must press upon an earl who is conscientious.  He was still unmarried.  The friendship between him and Miss Forsythe, which had been kept alive by occasional correspondence, became more cordial and confidential.  In New York he had seen much of Margaret, not at all to his peace of mind in many ways, though the generous fellow would have been less hurt if he had not estimated at its real value the life she was leading.  It did not need Margaret’s introduction for the earl to be sought for by the novelty and pleasure loving society of the city; but he got, as he confessed, small satisfaction out of the whirl of it, although we knew that he met Mrs. Henderson everywhere, and in a manner assisted in her social triumphs.  But he renewed his acquaintance with Miss Eschelle, and it was the prattle of this ingenuous creature that made him more heavy-hearted than anything else.