The Metropolis

"I'm very proud of my crest," continued Mrs. Winnie. "Of course there are vulgar rich people who have them made to order, and make them ridiculous; but ours is a real one. It's my own — not my husband's; the Duvals are an old French family, but they're not noble. I was a Morris, you know, and our line runs back to the old French ducal house of Montmorenci. And last summer, when we were motoring, I hunted up one of their chateaux; and see! I brought over this."

Mrs. Winnie pointed to a suit of armour, placed in a passage leading to the billiard-room. 'I have had the lights fixed," she added. And she pressed a button, and all illumination vanished, save for a faint red glow just above the man in armour.

" Doesn't he look real.?" said she. (He had his visor down, and a battle-axe in his mailed hands.)

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so THE METROPOLIS

"I like to imagine that he may have been my twentieth great-grandfather. I come and sit here, and gaze at him and shiver. Think what a terrible time it must have been to live in — when men wore things like that! It couldn't be any worse to be a crab."

"You seem to be fond of strange emotions," said Montague, laughing.

" Maybe I am," said the other. " I like everything that's old and romantic, and makes you forget this stupid society world."

She stood brooding for a moment or two, gazing at the figure. Then she asked, abruptly, *' Which do you like best, pictures or swimming ? "

"Why," replied the man, laughing and perplexed, "I like them both, at times."

"I wondered which you'd rather see first," explained his escort; " the art gallery or the nata-torium. I'm afraid you'll get tired before you've seen everything."

" Suppose we begin with the art-gallery," said he. "There's not much to see in a swimming-pool."

"Ah, but ours is a very special one," said the lady.—"And some day, if you'll be very good, and promise not to tell anyone, I'll let you see my own bath. Perhaps they've told you, I have one in my own apartments, cut out of a block of the most wonderful green marble."

Montague showed the expected amount of astonishment.

" Of course that gave the dreadful newspapers another chance to gossip," said Mrs. Winnie, plaintively. " People found out what I had paid

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for it. One can't have anything beautiful without that question being asked."

And then followed a silence, while Mrs. Winnie waited for him to ask it. As he forbore to do so, she added, "It was fifty thousand dollars."

They were moving toward the elevator, where a small boy in the wonde:^ul livery of plush and scarlet stood at attention. "Sometimes," she continued, "it seems to me that it is wicked to pay such prices for things. Have you ever thought about it.!*"

"Occasionally," Montague replied.

"Of course," said she, "it makes work for people; and I suppose they can't be better employed than in making beautiful things. But sometimes, when I think of all the poverty there is, I get unhappy. We have a winter place down South — one of those huge country-houses that look like exposition buildings, and have rooms for a hundred guests; and sometimes I go driving by myself, down to the mill towns, and go through them and talk to the children. I came to know some of them quite well — poor little wretches."

They stepped out of the elevator, and moved toward the art-gallery. " It used to make me so unhappy," she went on. "I tried to talk to my husband about it, but he wouldn't have it. 'I don't see why you can't be like other people,' he said — he's always repeating that to me. And what could I say.''"

" Why not suggest that other people might be like you ? " said the man, laughing.

"I wasn't clever enough," said she, regret-

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fully. — " It's very hard for a woman, you know — with no one to understand. Once I went down to a settlement, to see what that was like. Do you know anything about settlements.''"

"Nothing at all," said Montague.

"Well, they are people who go to live among the poor, and try to Reform them. It takes a terrible lot of courage, I think. I give them money now and then, but I am never sure if it does any good. The trouble with poor people, it seems to me, is that there are so many of them."

" There are, indeed," said Montague, thinking of the vision he had seen from Oliver's racing-car.

Mrs. Winnie had seated herself upon a cushioned seat near the entrance to the darkened gallery. "I haven't been there for some time," she continued. "I've discovered something that I think appeals more to my temperament. I have rather a leaning toward the occult and the mystical, I'm afraid. Did you ever hear of the Bab-ists.?"

"No," said Montague.

" Well, that's a religious sect — from Persia, I think — and they are quite the rage. They are priests, you understand, and they give lectures, and teach you all about the immanence of the divine, and about reincarnation, and Karma, and all that. Do you believe any of those things.?"

" I can't say that I know about them," said he.