Marion Sanderson's surroundings kept her in a continual state of irritation. Her fancy created an ideal life with harmonious environments and sympathetic friends, but the reality was what she termed "an utterly commonplace existence." From early childhood her parents and acquaintances had jarred upon her, so that her fanciful mind had carried on incessant warfare with her prosaic surroundings. Her father and mother were respectable representatives of practical Calvinism, who, endeavoring to make their child a pillar of the Church, had persistently combated her natural tendencies. For days at a time, during her younger years, the poor child would obediently follow the routine of prayer prescribed for her until worn out by the drastic Scotch tenets; then rebellious tears would flow, and she would permit some natural sentiments to escape from her impulsive heart. Such outbursts most frequently occurred on Sunday, and they invariably called from her mother's lips the time-tried reproof: "I think, Marion, you forget the day. Remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy." Resentful and disgusted the child would expostulate, only to be frigidly denounced as one possessed of an evil spirit; then she would rush to her room and remain for hours sobbing and yearning for sympathy. "Fox's Book of Martyrs," "The Church at Home and Abroad," and "Baxter's Saints' Rest" were her literary diet, but she managed to devour, surreptitiously, romance after romance, and her greatest pleasure was to live over, in fancy, the lives of those she had read about. Thus for fifteen years the restless child tugged unsuccessfully at the parental tethers till relief came from an unexpected quarter.

Marion's mother, despairing of her child's spiritual welfare, decided curiously enough, to send her abroad to the care of her sister-in-law, the wife of the United States minister to France. This aunt, being a woman of broad sympathies and experience, questioned the girl about her education, and, finding that it had been confined to the three R's and the Westminster catechism, decided to send her to school. So Marion was forthwith ensconced in a select pension patronized by the Faubourg St. Germain nobility. Here a new life was opened to Marion, and, freed from her childhood's restraints, she eagerly sought companionship with these girls of a different world. She learned a new language and new sentiments, and though novels were forbidden in the school, the pages of Balzac, MÉrimÉe, Sand and Gautier, surreptitiously read, fed her fancy with new impressions and created new aspirations. Florence Moreland was the only other American in the school, and to her Marion was attracted by the very oppositeness of her nature. The frank practicality and keen perception of Florence fascinated her, and although the two girls disagreed on most subjects, a warm affection always kept their hearts united.

Marion left the pension at the age of seventeen. By that curious process of expatriation which few but Americans can successfully undergo, her childhood's sentiments had been removed, and European ideas had been engrafted in their place. Her aunt, who during Marion's pension days had vibrated between Paris and the Riviera, now took her for a few months of travel. Florence was invited to accompany them, and after making the conventional summer-garden tour of the Continent, they went to Nice for the winter. There the two girls studied Italian and mixed in the quasi Anglo-European society of the place—certainly not the best for a girl first to enter.

The transfer of Marion's uncle to the English mission brought them to London, and they were just enjoying the excitement of a first season when Marion's parents ordered her home. A child when she left Chicago, she was now a woman. Her home, which had been uncongenial before, was now intolerable. Her life became a continual struggle against the prejudices of her parents. She longed to pull down the sombre drawing-room curtains and pitch the stiff-backed, haircloth chairs out of the window; but her father, though a millionaire, would brook no change. Still she struggled on, demanding an alteration in the dinner hour, wine at table and the discarding of the family carry-all. "Do you want me to open the house to Satan?" her mother asked in horrified tones. "I want you to be civilized beings and not anchorites," she replied. Her mother's friends were practically limited to the communicants of the Knox Presbyterian Church, but such a society only served to exasperate her more. To her the men were stupid slaves of business and the women narrow-minded prudes. There was a progressive set whose companionship she desired, but in her mother's mind they were the Devil's chosen, and were consequently forbidden the house. In desperation Marion sought relief and it came in the shape of a husband. Roswell Sanderson was vice-president of her father's bank, rich, prominent, and,—what was more to her,—liberal-minded. He asked her to be his wife, and, without analyzing her feelings further than the sense of gratefulness which she felt, she accepted him. After a brief engagement they were married and her new life began.

Marion's husband was a country boy who had been sent to an Eastern college; and possessing American energy and perception in a marked degree, he rapidly won a place in the first rank of Chicago business men. He was a man of broad ideas and sympathies, but lacked the delicate veneer of manners which distinguishes the cosmopolite from the provincial. In Marion's eyes this fault soon became greatly magnified. His flat pronunciation and Western inflection, his cordial, unstudied manner and hearty laughter so mortified her that in the presence of those who were capable of recognizing his shortcomings, her manner became apologetic. His open-hearted frankness, which made him a friend of high and low, so rasped her ideas of convention that all sense of sympathy was destroyed, and her married life was no more congenial than that at home had been. Roswell never criticised her actions, so she was enabled to seek relief in society. She saw the gradual enlargement and improvement of Chicago but she was able to pick flaws in the struggles of society to break the shackles of provincialism, and she longed to hasten the metropolizing process. Unlike Florence Moreland she could not admire the vigor and freshness of Western life, but permitted herself to suffer from intense mortification at the faults which others would have passed unnoticed. Marriage and society having failed to supply the happiness she desired, she turned to books. Her selections of reading, however, were destined to intensify her restlessness, for in the pages of Daudet, Bourget and de Maupassant she found the anomalies of human weakness painted in brilliant and exculpatory colors. The clever portraitures of these subtle analysts created a spirit which caused her to explain her eccentricities of feeling by comparison with the emotions described in their yellow-covered records. She became a disciple of the modern philosophy of introspection, which, unlike that of the stoic and anchorite, is not intended to humble desire, but to create a morbid craving for the unattainable. Recognizing that the absorbing passion of her life was yet to come, she scrupulously analyzed each impulse she felt and resolved it into infinitesimal atoms of feeling, which again were subjectively compared with the minutest details of her analytical romances. The consequence was that her emotions were kept in a state of continual irritation, and ordinary pleasures becoming less and less gratifying, a desire for new excitements and experiences was created. It was in such a state of mind that Florence Moreland had found her, and, since the latter's arrival in Chicago she had striven unsuccessfully to dispel the spirit of depression which had taken possession of her friend.

On the afternoon of the day following the performance of "Otello," Florence, cold and rosy from tobogganing, burst into the drawing room. She expected to find Marion in one of her moods, and she was astonished to find her dressed to go out and carelessly strumming on the piano. Marion looked up, and, seeing Florence, burst into laughter at her tousled locks and red cheeks. "You had better stand over the register and get thawed out," Marion remarked cheerfully; then, thumping the piano again, she continued: "How was the slide?"

"Capital! and hundreds of people there," was Florence's reply. Then, wondering at Marion's sudden change of spirits, she added, "Are you going to the McSeeney's tea?"

"Yes; I intend to take Mr. Grahame."

"I suppose I shall have to get there the best way I can."

"You can take the brougham. What do you think of him?"

"Who, the brougham?"

"No; Mr. Grahame, you silly."

"O, he is like many New Yorkers, one-third clothes and two-thirds conceit. I asked him if he thought he should like Chicago, and, knowing I was from the East, he confidently replied: 'It is not New York, you know, but I suppose one can get used to anything in time.'"

"I don't care, I like him," Marion replied.

"Hush, here he comes," said Florence hurriedly.

A servant announced Mr. Grahame, and as Duncan entered, Marion said in a somewhat surprised tone, "Are you always so prompt?"

"No; it is quite a mistake, I assure you," he replied. "I will not be so vulgarly exact next time."

"It is a provincialism quite permissible in the West," said Marion.

"Indeed! But I have not yet said good afternoon," replied Duncan; "have you recovered from the dissipation of last evening?"

"Quite."

"And you, Miss Moreland?"

"Look at her cheeks, Mr. Grahame," interjected Marion.

"I see it is needless to ask about your health, Miss Moreland, but I trust I may say I admire your snow costume."

"You must have a fondness for brilliant colors," said Florence.

"Decidedly; shades and tints were made for funerals and frowns," he replied.

"I don't like to interrupt," interposed Marion hurriedly, "but I fear it is time for Mr. Grahame and me to be going."

"Are you not to accompany us, Miss Moreland?" said Duncan.

"Not in this costume, certainly," laughed Florence.

"Then I shall say au revoir."

"Where am I to be taken?" said Duncan, as he and Marion descended the steps of the house.

"To meet my most bitter enemy, Mrs. McSeeney," she replied.

"I admire your courage," he said.

"O, there is no danger of bodily harm, as we are quite on speaking terms; a sort of armed neutrality, you know."

"Am I to be used as an offensive or a defensive weapon?" Duncan asked.

"Neither; I shall use you as a flag of truce; but whatever happens don't you dare to say she is good looking or brilliant."

"I promise," he answered, "but please tell me who she is and what she is."

"You ought to know her; she is a New Yorker,—at least she was three years ago—her husband is the president of an elevated railway company and made her come here to live. She hates Chicago, and takes her revenge by saying disagreeable things about it. For some reason she has singled me out as the particular object of her antipathy and you can imagine there is no love lost between us. But here we are at her door, so I can't tell you any more."

They had reached an awning-covered doorway where numerous carriages were arriving and depositing their occupants. They ascended the steps and were ushered into a crowded room where a well dressed throng were jostling about and trying to keep off one another's toes. Near the door Mrs. McSeeney was undergoing the laborious experience of greeting her friends, while about the room Mrs. Nobody could be heard cackling loudly and Mrs. Somebody peeping meekly, while Mr. Smart was smirking and Mr. Plain was awkwardly striving to interest ugly Miss Cr[oe]sus. It was a prattling, garrulous society. The world over it is the same, differentiated by race and place, perhaps, but still society.

Duncan was taken about and introduced to scores of people whose names he did not even hear. A smile here and a word there was all he had time for, but he managed to meet all "the people one should know," and, being a new man, caused a flutter of expectation among the women. "Who is he?" "What is he?" "Where is he from?" were the questions asked by all, but they scarcely received a satisfactory answer before Marion hurried Duncan into an adjoining room where numerous pretty girls were dispensing that universal anodyne of modern life, tea. What should we moderns do without tea? It is the prop of society, and without this precious Chinese plant we might still be cupping the sack, and beating our wives between the draughts. In fact a noted moralist has said that "tea has checked our boisterous revels, raised women to a new position, refined manners, and softened the character of men." Perhaps! but let a man with a full cup of tea, and the spoon balanced on the edge of the saucer, try to rise from a low chair and shake hands; then ask him what he thinks about the effect of tea on a man's character.

After responding scores of times to the question, "How do you like Chicago?" with the reply, "I don't know," and after answering quite as frequently and in the same manner the question, "How long do you expect to remain here?" Duncan was finally rescued by Marion Sanderson and taken away.

"You don't often have strangers here, do you?" Duncan gasped when they were outside. "I seem as much of a curiosity as a white man on the Congo."

"Not quite so bad as that," Marion laughed, "though I must confess a new man is an attraction here, especially at a tea, where there are at least two women to every one of the other sex."

"I suppose the natives are frightened away."

"No, you wretch, they are all in business."

"Lucky beggars."

Marion gave him a side glance intended to be annihilating, and silently walked the few remaining steps. When they reached her door she stopped and said, somewhat coldly: "Won't you come in, Mr. Grahame?"

"I certainly will, as I cannot leave with the mercury of your manners so low."

"You surely do not fancy that you can make it rise."

"I do," he said confidently.

Marion looked at him scornfully, but it was an assumed scorn; as to herself she admitted a fondness for assurance like Duncan's. Florence Moreland would have called it presumption, but Marion felt that it indicated a strong nature worthy of careful analysis. Her manner was often the naÏvetÉ of inexperience. She fancied that she knew the world, but her knowledge was theoretically culled from her yellow-covered romances. She frequently allowed men a freedom of speech which might be misunderstood at times, and excused herself by the thought that such carelessness became a woman of the world. She courted admiration because she felt it to be her due, and in her search for experiences of the world she often displayed an artlessness which was singularly liable to be misinterpreted by the men with whom she came in contact.

Just inside the door on the right of the hall was a wee room decorated in Louis Quinze style, and into this they went. Delicate and cozy, with a polished floor, a leopard's skin rug, soft tinted walls, white and gold woodwork, a tiny open fire, a brocade screen, a chair or two and a tÊte-a-tÊte seat,—it was, in fact, a delightful expression of Marion's taste.

"Charming," said Duncan as he sat down opposite Marion on the tÊte-a-tÊte and looked about him.

"I am glad something pleases you," she replied as she threw aside her jacket. "Your assurance amazes me," she continued. "Last night you told me you had been about collecting bits of gossip about me in order to understand my character, and now you coolly inform me that you are capable of influencing my feelings. I ought to detest you."

Duncan silently looked with his large, grey eyes into her face for a moment and then said, "I wish you would."

"Why?" she questioned wonderingly.

"Because we might end by being friends."

"A repellent manner of attracting, certainly," she replied.

"Exactly! kindred natures always repel one another with a force equal to their subsequent attraction."

"That sounds like a proposition in physics."

"In metaphysics, perhaps," he answered. "It means that if we first quarrel we shall eventually become sympathetic friends."

"Polemical enemies, I should say," Marion replied sharply.

"Why?"

"Because I am not willing to admit I am of so changeable a nature," she replied.

"A mediocre nature will never change; an uncommon one invariably does," he said confidently.

"Another slur."

"A compliment, I should say, as your opinion of me will change."

"On what do you base your presumption?" she said with assumed indignation.

He was silent. She glanced about the room. It was nearly dark and the fire was flickering on the hearth. Unconsciously she looked up as though seeking an answer to her question. Again two grey eyes looked softly through the twilight into her own. "Because I feel certain of it," he said quietly and emphatically, as though in answer to her questioning glance.

"Then you shall acknowledge yourself mistaken," she slowly replied. "I'll give you a fair chance. Will you dine with us on Friday?"

"A day of ill luck, but I accept," he replied as he rose to go. "Shall it be a truce in the interim?" he added, offering his hand.

"If you like," she replied.

"Good-by," he said, taking her hand. "It shall be a fair game and I will play to win."

"But you will lose," she answered.

Her eyes followed him as he left the room. "An interesting nature to study," she thought, "but I wish he would not look at me in that way."