haste to bring home another consort, being in love with the one he had.

22

Nearly a year slipped by and Sir Jon's failure to comply with the King's mandate reached the ears of King Borel. Sir Jon was summoned to the Palace.

wild boar, nor was there chanted the Song of Hymenæus. And for many long years the head of a wild boar never again graced Sir Jon's table.

No one troubled to ascertain what Marthe thought about it. She settled down comfortably in the wing of the castle prepared for her. She

"Let her be dark and homely," prayed Lady Isobel. She disliked blonds as instinctively as she distrusted them. Were not the attractive morganatic ladies fair of hair?

Lady Isobel passed a most unpleasant week. Not until Sir Jon returned with Marthe did she fully realize how great the strain had been. For at sight of Marthe she almost giggled. Which shows that much comfort may be derived from looking unpleasant situations squarely in the face, for of course it really wasn't a laughing matter.

Never had Sir Jon displayed greater love for his wife than when he chose her successor. For Marthe was too short, too plump, too sallow, too colorless of hair.

Perhaps Queen Fleur, who was fond of Lady Isobel, had something to do with it. Thanks to the King's mandate, a certain nobleman had disposed of all but one of a large family of girls. Marthe, in spite of all the marrying and giving in marriage, remained unclaimed. The Queen pointed out that Marthe came of a prolific family, which would please the King. She was plain, which would please Lady Isobel.

Really, an excellent arrangement. So Sir Jon brought Marthe home. The wedding-feast was ample, but there was not served the head of a

sewed endlessly for the babies that came with exemplary promptness. She seemed content to have no real existence aside from her children, a trait said to have been not uncommon among women at that time.

Lady Isobel carried all the soft warm cushions from the big hall, where she and Sir Jon had sat of evenings, up to her boudoir.

Sir Jon followed the cushions.

Lady Isobel was not unhappy. As the years passed Sir Jon remained as devoted as can reasonably be expected of a husband. He was fond of Marthe's children, stolid boys, and romped with them up and down the great hall and taught them the use of the medieval weapons and impressed upon them the honorable future awaiting in the army-that army which was the reason for their being.

And throughout the Kingdom Sir Jon was pointed out as an example of what husbands should have done under the King's mandate, especially by the wives whose husbands had brought home young and handsome consorts. Goodness knows, there are always plenty of homely girls to be had. And homely girls make good mothers.

But the harassed husbands asserted that Sir Jon was henpecked and did not dare take a handsome wife. Indeed, so insistent were the

husbands on Sir Jon's henpecked condition that in time the gossip reached Sir Jon's ears, where it buzzed suggestively.

Tall, slender, spirited, at forty Lady Isobel was conceded to be the handsomest woman of her age in the Kingdom. Her lovely face was as smooth as a girl's. There were no sullen lines around her mouth such as were discernible on the faces of the wives who had taken the King's mandate—and their husbands-too seriously.

To be sure, the silver crescent of hair had broadened into a halo of soft white waves on her fair forehead. But the long strands of Lady Isobel's abundant hair were yet black and when she coiled them high on her proud head against the gleaming silver halo the result was startlingly becoming. And some wives deemed it almost immoral that Lady Isobel should thus turn a woman's greatest liability into an asset.

21

And the Kingdom of Loveana prospered. Once more the annual levies filled the army with fresh young recruits. As the years passed machinery became more general and time-wasting methods stopped. The peasantry became bourgeois.

Skirts began to go up.

Lady Isobel was the first woman of the nobility to wear her skirts a bit shorter than she should have. She imported and wore at Court the first pair of chiffon hose to reach the Kingdom of Loveana. The other ladies hastened to follow her example, for it was noticeable that King Borel, who had grown old, was once more taking an active interest in his Court functions.

When Marthe shortened her skirts not wisely but too well, Lady Isobel did giggle.

"How perfectly silly I would have been," she thought, "to have ever been jealous of a woman with such dreadful legs." For of all the legs that began to appear publicly none were more shapely than the Lady Isobel's.

When Sir Jon was forty-five he went out one day and brought home Clotilde.

At sight of Clotilde the Lady Isobel withdrew precipitately to her rooms. Phlegmatic Marthe unexpectedly dissolved into tears and lamentations. For Clotilde was very young, and pretty in a bold, redlipped way, and her ankles were slender and extremely active.

The first week of Sir Jon's third honeymoon was interrupted at frequent intervals, but not by the Lady Isobel. It was Marthe whose red eyes and reproaches followed Sir Jon like a guilty conscience. Fortunately for Sir Jon, Marthe's youngest son-the only one not now in the army-came down with mumps and Marthe the wife was absorbed in Marthe the mother.

The Lady Isobel remained in seclusion. And her grief was very deep.

But if grief can be strong, so can habit. All her life Lady Isobel had practised looking unpleasant situations squarely in the face and deriving therefrom such pleasure or profit as she might. Whenever she had occasion to weep she had wept into her mirror, for she had a theory that if a pretty woman saw how hideous she looked crying, she wouldn't cry.

Waves of passion and sorrow

swept over her, leaving her miserable but undaunted. And presently Lady Isobel, not so red of eyes as she might have been under the circumstances, sat up and looked her wrecked happiness in the face.

First of all, wifelike, she blamed herself. She had been too sure of her husband. Sir Jon's love had lulled her into a sense of security and Lady Isobel knew very well that no woman with a husband of forty-five should ever be lulled into a sense of security.

She considered paying Sir Jon in his own coin. She had read aright the_admiring glances of certain of Sir Jon's predatory neighbors.

"I could turn most of the gray heads in the Kingdom," she thought, "and all of the bald ones."

But the thought gave her little comfort. She knew hers was a single track heart, incapable of simultaneously carrying two cargoes of affection. Then, too, deep in her consciousness Lady Isobel had a secret contempt for men's susceptibility, their absorption in pretty faces. No, she could not flirt.

Resolutely, Lady Isobel repeated, "happiness is a state of mind, not an arrangement of circumstances." Now usually when a cold hard fact is brought to bear against a broken heart, the cold hard fact retires a wreck. But not when the broken heart is Lady Isobel's.

"Humph! Arrangement of circumstances. Meaning my husband and that little blond cat who has got her claws into him. Really, it's just silly in him. A man of forty-five, with a thin place on top of his head and a bulge in front!"

"It's odd that men never see their own silliness," thought Lady Isobel.

Well, who better than a wife is qualified to point it out?

But discreetly. And laughter wins more victories than tears.

The idea of reproaching her husband never entered Lady Isobel's pretty head. She knew only too well that a reproached husband instinctively justifies himself. Once his justification is made vocal he believes it. Lady Isobel wisely left reproaches to Marthe.

Nevertheless, Lady Isobel passed a most unpleasant fortnight.

Not so Sir Jon. Clotilde was very sweet. She carried him off every evening to all the Inns in the neighborhood to dance. She taught him the new steps and laughed when he got out of breath. Sir Jon discovered several things about the younger generation, one of which was the lateness of the hours it kept.

But of course he enjoyed it immensely and felt a young blade and a gay dog. At the end of a fortnight he realized he had missed a lot of sleep and had not once seen Lady Isobel in the interim.

Sir Jon felt aggrieved thereat.

"Hang it," he said, "I thought Isobel was fond of me. She might at least show a little feeling."

Husbandlike, he blamed Lady Isobel. "She's damned inconsiderate," he stormed. "She knows I might have brought home a blond wife years ago. Which was quite

true.

"She knows perfectly well that Clotilde needn't make any difference between us-I feel just the same toward her. Anyway, it's the law."

Sir Jon felt he had a strong case, as of course he had. He stormed up

to Lady Isobel's apartment prepared to state his case firmly. The door was locked. At his savage knock it opened slightly and Lady Isobel's giggling maid informed him that My Lady was engaged with her modiste and begged to be excused. The maid, still giggling, closed the door firmly in Sir Jon's angry face.

Giggling! That damn maid had dared to laugh at him! No doubt Lady Isobel was giggling the modiste was giggling! Furious, Sir Jon sought Clotilde, who comforted him and suggested he use a hair tonic and refrain from certain rich foods of which he was overly fond.

"You're not exactly what I'd call the latest sport model, old dear," said Clotilde, with the charming frankness for which the younger generation was noted. "Not with that tummy."

Clotilde laughed when Sir Jon colored angrily. "You sure do shake a wicked spare," she told him.

Justly incensed, Sir Jon remembered that when he last saw Marthe she had been weeping. Desirous of comforting her he knocked confidently at her door. A solemn servant informed him that Mistress Marthe was reading aloud to her sick son and could not be disturbed. With a great oath Sir Jon went out to the kennels, where he kicked at his hounds and went hunting.

When Lady Isobel resumed her attendance at table, it was without outward sign of inner turmoil. She was gay and handsomer than ever. Her modiste had labored and brought forth several becoming gowns which Lady Isobel wore with a grace that Clotilde secretly envied. But what attracted Sir Jon's attention was the

curly black tress arranged low on her smooth forehead, where it gleamed like a strand of burnished midnight against the silver halo of her hair.

Lady Isobel's skirts were as short as Clotilde's-far too short the neighbors said, for a woman of her age. Lady Isobel's slim ankles tripped lightly over the worn stone flagging and her ready laughter was sweet. She treated Clotilde much as she would have treated any cat, which was not at all unkindly, being fond of cats, but suggestive of an acute awareness of claws.

But Marthe always sniffed unpleasantly whenever she saw Clotilde. As the months passed Lady Isobel continued to practise an irritating elusiveness. She brought the soft warm cushions from her boudoir down to the gloomy hall and sat there evenings, with Marthe for company. The youngest son had gone to fulfil his destiny in the army and Marthe was lonely. The two women seemed to find a peculiar quality of comfort in each other's society.

Sir Jon could sit with them if he liked, but they never seemed to care if he went out with Clotilde on her nightly terpsichorean rounds. To Clotilde an evening without dancing was incomprehensible.

Perhaps because his diet disagreed with him; perhaps because so much. dancing made his legs stiff; perhaps the calm delights of fireside comfort had a new appeal for him. Whatever the cause, Sir Jon sat with them more frequently of evenings and Clotilde went out with young Arthur, the son of an impoverished country Baron who lived hard by.

Lady Isobel always greeted young Arthur with a smile, but Marthe

always sniffed unpleasantly whenever he came to the castle.

And for a man with three affectionate wives, Sir Jon's home was strangely lacking in wifely comfort.

23

During the years when the Kingdom of Loveana grew prosperous, King Borel grew old. The attractive morganatic ladies had long since been pensioned off. There was a wonderful young army-with little to do. So rapidly had the old order passed that it was no longer ethical for a country to annex contiguous provinces rich in coal.

A wonderful young army, but rebellious.

Yes, rebellious against the King's mandate enforcing polygamy.

"One wife at a time is enough," said the first young recruit. "More than enough, likely as not."

"If a guy wants to sport 'round a bit, all right," said the second young recruit. "But to be told you've got to have a lot of skirts bossing you— that's a cat of another color."

"Silk stockings! Silk what-youmay-call-'ems!" said the first young recruit. "I'd like to know where in blazes the King thinks the money's coming from!"

Now of course this rebellion in the army did not signify any radical change in masculine nature. Several things a man may consider necessary to his private enjoyment become distasteful when made mandatory. But it did signify an economic transition that had shaken Loveana to its foundations. Democratic tendencies, originating in a powerful republic across the seas, had been imported thence along with improved machinery and silk lingerie.

The peasantry of Loveana broke out in an epidemic of near-silk hose. Many a lady's-maid had a trousseau finer than Lady Isobel's had been twenty odd years before. Wives old enough to know better, their husbands said, demanded silk what-youmay-call-'ems and got them. Which was as it should be, but it operated as a deterrent to compliance with the King's mandate.

The murmuring in the wonderful young army reached the ears of King Borel. The King had come to fear his army that had so little to do and was potentially capable of doing too much. He summoned his Generals, who of course recommended severe measures for the conscripted men. King Borel took their recommendation under advisement, dismissed them, and went to consult Queen Fleur.

"Abolish polygamy," said the Queen.

"An excellent idea, my dear," said the King, and departed to issue the royal decree.

Not until too late did Queen Fleur regret her failure to discuss the details with the King. For King Borel, in making monogamy again the law of the land, wisely stipulated that each husband should retain one wife, in the choice of which he was quite free. And again kindness prevailed, for King Borel ordered that suitable pensions be paid to the old wives who would thus find themselves put aside.

Being now old herself, the Queen was greatly incensed. But for many days there was a twinkle in the King's dim eyes, for it had been many years since he had worsted the Queen so easily.