"
"Oh, I hope you are right; I hope no one thought that," I said confusedly
in answer to the glance. And then I bent over the Caesar that Boy laid
upon my lap, while Uncle asked:--
"Well, my son, is there mutiny again in the camp of our Great and Good
Friend, Divitiacus the Aeduan?"
A few minutes later John said good-night with a ludicrous expression of
pained, absent-minded patience. I didn't go to the door with him; I
scarcely looked up from Boy's ablative absolutes.
Oh I treated him shabbily. And yet--why did he use every effort that day
to keep me ignorant of my own rightful affairs, only to come at me himself
with a club, gibbering of newspapers?
Why, John's absurd! He would have liked to find me--not ill, of course,
but overcome by the Opera experience, dependent on him, ready to be
shielded, hidden, petted, comforted. He can not see me as I am--a strong,
splendid woman, ready to accept the responsibilities of my beauty.
CHAPTER VI.
LOVE IS NOTHING!
Monday, Jan. 20.
Dear me! Beauty is a responsibility! Such troubles, such trials about
nothing! It's photographs this time!
Last Wednesday--the day after the papers published so much about me--a
strange man called in Mrs.
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