she would go.  But it was very difficult for her to determine on the manner in which she would discuss the subject with him.  She thought that she could be firm if her mind were once made up.  She believed that perhaps she was by nature more firm than he.  In all their intercourse together he had ever yielded to her; and though she had been always pleased and grateful, there had grown upon her an idea that he was perhaps too easy, that he was a man as to whom it was necessary that they who loved him should see that he was not led away by weakness into folly.  But she would want to learn something from him before her decision was finally reached, and in this she foresaw a great difficulty.  In her trouble she went to her usual counsellor, the Republican Browning.  In such an emergency she could hardly have done worse.  ‘Wally,’ she said, ’we talk about England, and Italy, and France, as though we knew all about them; but how hard it is to realise the difference between one’s own country and others.’

‘We can at least learn a great deal that is satisfactory,’ said Wallachia.  ’About one out of every five Italians can read a book, about two out of every five Englishmen can read a book.  Out of every five New Englanders four and four-fifths can read a book.  I guess that is knowing a good deal.’

‘I don’t mean in statistics.’

’I cannot conceive how you are to learn anything about any country except by statistics.  I have just discovered that the number of illegitimate children—­’

’Oh, Wally, I can’t talk about that—­not now, at least.  What I cannot realise is this, what sort of a life it is that they will lead at Monkhams.’

’Plenty to eat and drink, I guess; and you’ll always have to go around in fine clothes.’

‘And that will be all?’

’No not all.  There will be carriages and horses, and all manner of people there who won’t care much about you.  If he is firm, very firm, if he have that firmness which one does not often meet, even in an American man, he will be able, after a while, to give you a position as an English woman of rank.’  It is to be feared that Wallachia Petrie had been made aware of Caroline’s idea as to Mr Glascock’s want of purpose.

‘And that will be all?’

’If you have a baby, they’ll let you go and see it two or three times a day.  I don’t suppose you will be allowed to nurse it, because they never do in England.  You have read what the Saturday Review says.  In every other respect the Saturday Review has been the falsest of all false periodicals, but I guess it has been pretty true in what it has said about English women.’

‘I wish I knew more about it really.’

’When a man has to leap through a window in the dark, Caroline, of course he doubts whether the feather bed said to be below will be soft enough for him.’

’I shouldn’t fear the leap for myself, if it wouldn’t hurt him.  Do you think it possible that society can be so formed that a man should lose caste because he doesn’t marry just one of his own set?’