“Very ill-timed of Providence!” said Louis gravely.  “What a pity it is, Isabelle, that you couldn’t have the regulation of affairs.”  He yawned and strolled lazily towards the fireplace.  When he looked round again, Evadne was the only other occupant of the room.

“Well, coz, what do you think of the situation?  I belong to the worldlings, of course, but I confess the idea of Jesus Christ at a Butterfly Social is tremendously incongruous.  We have the best of it, Evadne, for we live up to our theories.  Give it up, coz.  You’ll find it a hopeless task to make the Bible and modern Christianity agree.”

He looked at his watch.

“I say, Evadne, Jefferson is playing at the Metropolitan in Richard III. to-night.  Let us go and hear him.”

And Evadne went, and enjoyed it immensely.

CHAPTER VII.

“I am going for a long ride into the country, Evadne,” said her uncle one morning, “would you like to come with me?”

Evadne gave a glad assent.  After her beautiful tropical life, it seemed to her as if she should choke, shut away from the wide expanse of sky which she loved, among monotonous rows of houses and dingy streets.

As they left the city behind them and the road swept out into the open, she gave a long sigh of delight.  Her uncle laughed.

“Well, Evadne, does it please you?”

“It is the first time I have felt as if I could breathe,” she said.

“So you don’t take kindly to Marlborough?  Well, I suppose it is a rude awakening from your sunny land, but you will get used to it.  We grow accustomed to all life’s disagreeable surprises as time rolls on.”

Evadne shivered.  “I do not think I shall ever grow accustomed to it, Uncle Lawrence.”

“Ah, you are young.  We grow wiser as our hair turns grey.”

“If that is wisdom, I do not care to grow wise.”

“Not grow wise, Evadne!” said her uncle quizzically.  “In this age, when women claim a surplusage of all the brain power bestowed upon the race!  What will you do when you have to attend to business?”

“Business,” echoed Evadne, “I have never thought about it, Uncle Lawrence.”

“No turn for dollars and cents, eh?  Did your father never consult you about his affairs?”

Evadne’s lip quivered.  “Oh, yes,” she said, and her words were a cry of pain, “he consulted me about everything, but I do not think there was ever any mention of money.  Does money constitute business, Uncle Lawrence?”

“Wealth gives power, Evadne.  Money is one of the greatest things in the world.  While we are on the subject I may as well tell you that your father wrote me concerning the disposition of his property.  I shall look after your interests carefully, together with my own, and give you the same quarterly allowance that my own girls have.  When you are older I will go more into detail, but it is not worth while now to worry your head over columns of uninteresting figures.  I shall open an account for you at the National Bank and you can draw on that for your expenses.  Your aunt will initiate you into the mysteries of shopping.  By the way, you must have gone through that experience in Barbadoes.  How did you manage there?”