第86章

Of all the weeds that infest the human garden snobbishness, the commonest, is the most prolific, and it is a mighty cross breeder, too--modifying every flower in the garden, changing colors from rich to glaring, changing odors from perfumes to sickening-sweet or to stenches.The dead hands of Martin Hastings scattered showers of shining gold upon his daughter's garden; and from these seeds was springing a heavy crop of that most prolific of weeds.

She was beginning to resent Charlton's manner-- bluff, unceremonious, candid, at times rude.He treated women exactly as he treated men, and he treated all men as intimates, free and easy fellow travelers afoot upon a dusty, vulgar highway.She had found charm in that manner, so natural to the man of no pretense, of splendid physical proportions, of the health of a fine tree.She was beginning to get into the state of mind at which practically all very rich people in a civilized society sooner or later arrive--a state of mind that makes it impossible for any to live with or near them except hirelings and dependents.The habit of power of any kind breeds intolerance of equality of level intercourse.This is held in check, often held entirely in check, where the power is based upon mental superiority; for the very superiority of the mind keeps alive the sense of humor and the sense of proportion.Not so the habit of money power.For money power is brutal, mindless.And as it is the only real power in any and all aristocracies, aristocracies are inevitably brutal and brutalizing.

If Jane had been poor, or had remained a few years longer--until her character was better set--under the restraining influence of her unfrilled and unfrillable father, her passion for power, for superiority would probably have impelled her to develop her mind into a source of power and position.Fate abruptly gave her the speediest and easiest means to power known in our plutocratic civilization.She would have had to be superhuman in beauty of character or a genius in mind to have rejected the short and easy way to her goal and struggled on in the long and hard--and doubtful--way.

She did not herself appreciate the change within herself.She fancied she was still what she had been two weeks before.For as yet nothing had occurred to enable her to realize her changed direction, her changed view of life.Thus, she was still thinking of Victor Dorn as she had thought of him; and she was impatient to see him.She was now free FREE! She could, without consulting anybody, have what she wanted.And she wanted Victor Dorn.

She had dropped from her horse and with her arm through the bridle was strolling along one of the quieter roads which Victor often took in his rambles.It was a tonic October day, with floods of sunshine upon the gorgeous autumnal foliage, never more gorgeous than in that fall of the happiest alternations of frost and warmth.She heard the pleasant rustle of quick steps in the fallen leaves that carpeted the byroad.She knew it was he before she glanced; and his first view of her face was of its beauty enhanced by a color as delicate and charming as that in the leaves about them.

She looked at his hands in which he was holding something half concealed.``What is it?'' she said, to cover her agitation.

He opened his hands a little wider.``A bird,'' said he.``Some hunter has broken its wing.I'm taking it to Charlton for repairs and a fair start for its winter down South.''