The curtain had fallen on the first act of “La Traviata,” and Ishbel, for once alone in the box with her husband, glanced idly over the imposing tiers of Covent Garden. Royalty was present, the smart peeresses were out in full force and wore their usual brave display of tiaras and miscellaneous jewels, inherited and otherwise, so that the horseshoe glittered like Aladdin’s palace. There was also a jeweller’s window in the stalls, and altogether it was a representative night in the beginning of the season.

Nevertheless, Ishbel became suddenly and acutely aware that she had on more jewels than any woman in the house. Not only was there an all-round and almost unbearably heavy tiara on her small head, nearly a foot high and composed of diamonds and emeralds as large as plums, but she wore a rope of diamonds that reached far below her knees, a necklace of five rows of pearls as big as her husband’s thumb nails, and linked with emeralds and diamonds, a sunburst of diamonds that looked like a waterfall, and equally priceless gems cutting into the flesh of her tender shoulders where they clasped the only visible portion of her raiment. Ishbel was justly proud of her magnificent collection of jewels, but, being a young woman of unerring good taste, was in the habit of wearing a few at a time. Several hours earlier, however, her husband, grown jealous of the prosiliency of the New South African millionnaires, had come home with the rope and commanded her to put on every jewel she possessed for the opera that night, and the first great ball of the season to follow. As she had surveyed herself in her long mirror it had occurred to her that she looked like a begum, but when she had called her husband’s attention to the fact, and suggested some modification in her display of converted capital, he had replied curtly that he had spent a quarter of his fortune for the public to look at on her equally ornamental self, and that when he wished it displayed in toto, displayed it should be. That is the way for a man to talk to his wife when he means to be obeyed; and when the masterful and successful Mr. Jones delivered his ultimatums, few that had aught to do with him were so hardy as to continue the argument.

Ishbel had trained herself to take him humorously, to believe him the most generous of men because he had proved quite amenable to the family plan of marrying off her sisters (they were handsome and an additional excuse for entertaining), and because he never alluded to her enormous bills or forgot to hand her a check for pin-money every quarter. She had rewarded him with thanks couched in an endless variety of terms and glances, even caresses when he demanded them. When they were alone at table (as seldom as she could manage) she even coquetted with him, giving him the full play of her piquant eyes and sweet smile, and talking in her brightest manner, to conceal from himself how hopeless he was in conversation. She even pitied him sometimes; for, in spite of his riches, his interests in the City, and the great position in society that she had given him, he seemed to her a lonely being, and she would have loved him if she could.

To-night, however, his words had rankled. They had echoed during the drive to the opera-house, stirring her most amiable of minds to a vague anger; and now, quite suddenly, she was filled with an intense mortification and resentment. Every intelligent being that has made a signal mistake in his life’s order has some sudden moment of awakening, of vision. The phrase “kept wife” had not yet arrived in literature, but it rose in Ishbel’s mind as she glanced from her white slender body, weary in its glittering armor, to the big heavy man opposite, sitting with a hand on either knee, his hard bright little eyes surveying her with triumphant approval. She was his property; he owned her, as he owned his house in Park Lane, the castle he had recently bought from a peer terrified by the remodelling of the death duties, his princely equipages, the noisy jewels on her person. After all, she had not a penny of her own, was as poor as when she had been one of fourteen hopeless sisters in Ireland; for he had carefully abstained from settlements, that she might feel her dependence, thank him periodically for his splendid checks. Her father had been in no position to insist upon settlements, but, had he been, would she be any better off ethically than now? They would have been but another present from the man who had bought her as he had bought his other famous possessions. If she had children, they would be his, not hers, and there was nothing he could not compel her to do, and be upheld by the laws of his country, unless he both beat her and kept a mistress.

She suddenly loathed him. That she had given him value received made her loathe him, and herself, the more. She shrank until she expected to hear her jewels rattle together, then raised her eyes again and flashed them about the house. She picked out twenty women in that glance who had sold their beauty for what their jewels represented, although, for the most part, they had the saving grace to be owned by gentlemen. But were they so much better off? Jones, at least, was now inoffensive in his manners and speech. Many gentlemen she knew were not, and one duke had a habit of catching her by the arm and leering into her crimsoning ear a horrid story. But that was not the point. What was the point? That women who married men for jewels and not for love were no better than the women of the street? Most women would have stopped there. It is a sentimental form of reasoning, eminently satisfactory to many women, and to some male novelists. But Ishbel had been born with a clear logical brain in which the fatal gift of humor was seldom dormant, and of late this brain had shown symptoms of impatience at neglect, muttered vague demands for recognition. Youth, a natural love of gayety, pleasure, splendor, reigning as a beauty, a laudable desire to help one’s family,—all very well—but—

Ishbel’s inner vision pierced straight down to the root (ornamentally overlaid) of the whole matter. The portionless woman, whether there was love between herself and her husband or not, was a property, a subject, an annex, nothing more, not even if she bore him children. Indeed, in the latter case she but proved the old contention that in bearing children she fulfilled her only mission on earth.

Ishbel had heard, as one hears of all civilized activities, of Woman’s Suffrage; this, too, passed in review before that search-light in her mind, and she wondered if the women asking for it dared to do so unless economically independent. She and Bridgit, when resting on their labors two years before,—a breathing spell in the grouse season,—had amused themselves in the library tracing the course of woman during those periods of the world’s history when she had been famous for her innings; and both had been struck by the fact that when nations were at peace and man enjoyed prosperity and comparative leisure, woman’s eminence and apparent freedom had been but her lord’s opportunity to display his riches and gratify the non-military side of his vanity. Only in a small minority of cases had this eminence and freedom been the result of self-support, inherited wealth, genius, or dynastic authority: the vast majority had been toys, jewel-laden henchwomen; even the great courtesans had been dependent upon their youth and charm and the caprice of man.

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No wonder so few women had left an impress on history. How could any brain, even if endowed with true genius, reach the highest order of development while the character remained flaccid in its willing dependence upon the reigning sex? And man had despised woman throughout the ages, even when most enslaved by her, knowing that on him depended her very existence. He had the physical strength to wring her neck, and the legal backing to treat her as partner or servant, whichever he found agreeable or convenient. She and Bridgit had discussed this phenomenon philosophically but impersonally, it being understood that when they did give their brains exercise, it should not interfere with their youthful enjoyment of life; nor should the exercise continue long enough to become a habit; time enough for that sort of thing when one had turned thirty. But it occurred to Ishbel in these moments of painful clarity. She had not taken the least interest in Woman’s Suffrage, a movement under a cloud at this time, but she had a sudden and poignant desire to be independent, and a simultaneous conviction that no woman was worthy of anything better than being one of man’s miscellaneous properties until she were. What right had women, supported by men, living on their exertions or fortunes, displayed or used at their pleasure, tricking them by a thousand ingenious devices to gain their ends, to be regarded as equals, political or otherwise? The most democratic of woman employers, unless a faddist, did not regard her employees, particularly her servants, as equals; and yet they, at least, worked for their bread, were economically independent, could throw up their situations without scandal. Ishbel had twenty-three servants in her ugly Park Lane mansion, and in the bitterness of her humiliation she felt herself the inferior of the scullery maid. She opened her eyes wide, staring out upon the world through the glittering curtain before her. What an extraordinary world it was! How silly! How uncivilized! How incomplete! What might not women attain with complete self-respect, and how utterly hopeless was their case without it!

“What are you thinking about?” asked Mr. Jones, curiously. He had been watching her for some moments.

“That I ache with all these ridiculous jewels.” Ishbel stood up and walked deliberately to the back of the box. “I feel as if I were wearing an old-fashioned crystal chandelier. Will you kindly put my cloak on?”

Jones had risen (being well trained in the small courtesies), but he showed no intention of following her.

“Certainly not,” he said peremptorily. “Sit down. I wish you to remain here until it is time to go to the duchess’s ball—”

“I’m not going to the duchess’s ball. I’m going home.”

He stared at her, his long straight mouth opening slightly, and his heavy underjaw twitching. Like many millionnaires, self-made, he looked like a retired prize-fighter, and for the moment he felt as old gods of the ring must feel when brushed contemptuously aside by arrogant youth. This was the first time his wife had shown the slightest hint of rebellion, deviated from a sweetness and tact that was without either condescension from her lofty birth, or servility to his wealth. But there was neither sweetness nor tact in her small pinched face. Her mouth was as compressed as his own could be, and the expression of her eyes frightened him.

“What on earth’s the matter with you?” he asked roughly.

“I tell you I don’t like the idea of looking like an idol, a chandelier, a begum, what you will; of having on more jewels than any woman in the house; of looking nouveau riche, if you will have it. And I am tired and am going home to bed. You can come or not, as you like.”

She put on her cloak. Jones, swearing under his breath, but helpless, caught up his own coat and hat and followed her out of the house. But although he stormed, protested, even condescended to beg, all the way home, she would not utter another word, and when she reached her room, locked the door behind her.