Grace Harmon was conspicuous for her beauty even in a land famous for its fair women. Tall and slender, with aristocratic features and queenly carriage, she was the typical Gibson girl. Women raved about her wonderful complexion, her splendid eyes, her magnificent hair, her graceful figure. They went into ecstasies over her gowns, her beautifully arched eyebrows, academic nose, dazzling white teeth, and a sensitive, delicately modeled mouth, that might have tempted Saint Anthony himself. Men looking for money whispered that she was the prize catch of the matrimonial market, being the only heir to her father's millions, and the more enterprising laid their lines accordingly. When she went out driving or appeared in her box at the opera, everybody craned their necks and stared rudely, eager to feast their eyes on the priceless gifts this favorite of fortune had received from the gods. In their cheap hall bedrooms, timid poets wrote love-sonnets which they mailed to her anonymously, expecting no acknowledgment, happy only that they had expressed on paper what lay heavy on their hearts.
So far Grace had shown herself indifferent either to sentiment or matrimonial ambitions. She had not encouraged any of the men who showered her with attentions, and even with her intimates she declined to discuss what they declared to be the all-important question. But that eventually she would make a sensationally brilliant marriage went without the saying, and society wiseacres predicted that Prince Sergius of Eurasia, the most persistent of her suitors, would sooner or later carry off the prize. The nephew of the reigning monarch of a bankrupt little kingdom in the Balkans, the prince had been well known in New York and Newport for several seasons past as a dissipated spendthrift anxious to make a good matrimonial catch. Grace had disliked him the first moment she set eyes on him, and he had never succeeded in removing this first unfavorable impression. On the other hand, such a match certainly had advantages which to many a girl would prove too dazzling and tempting to resist. But Grace declined to be hurried into a decision. She demanded time, and while waiting to know his fate the Prince was suddenly recalled to Europe. This was as far as the affair had gone, and secretly Grace was glad to see the last of him, at least for a time, although the well-informed press sagely gave out that it was "understood in society circles that a formal engagement of Miss Grace Harmon and the Prince of Eurasia would shortly be announced."
Fully conscious of her power, well aware that her mere presence aroused jealousy in every woman and admiration in every man, Grace would have been more than human had she escaped being spoiled. The spitefully inclined accused her of haughtiness and of carrying her head high. It is true that she was careful in choosing her intimates and quick to snub those who were too ready to claim acquaintance, yet friends once made she kept, and she was popular in her set. In the more private home circle she was fairly idolized, especially by her father, who had indulged her every whim ever since she was born. Her mother, for years a chronic invalid, had left chiefly to servants the care of bringing her up, but to her father she was all that was worth while in life. The old man existed only for his beautiful daughter. Everything money could purchase—fine clothes, costly trinkets, smart automobiles were hers for the asking. After graduating from Bryn Mawr, she spent two years in France, Italy and Germany, acquiring a superficial knowledge of the continental languages. On her return home she joined the social whirl and became proficient in bridge. In short, Grace Harmon was accomplished to the tips of her tapering, carefully manicured fingers.
Brought up in the lap of luxury, never having expressed a desire that was not immediately gratified, Grace discovered after a time that wealth, while useful, has also its drawbacks. Having everything, she wanted nothing. She found herself wishing there might be something she could not have, so that for once, at least, she might experience the emotion of longing for the unattainable.
The plain truth was that Grace was no ordinary girl. She had more brains than people gave her credit for. Although reared in the tainted hot-house atmosphere of society, with its degenerate amusements, its low moral tone and trivial ambitions, she took little real interest in its shallow, vulgar pleasures. The women she soon discovered to be empty-headed or frankly immoral; the men were, for the most part, libertines, gamblers, fortune-hunters. The homage paid to her beauty flattered her vanity, but once the novelty of her first two seasons had worn away, surfeited with dinners, receptions, dances, and bridge-parties, she grew deadly tired of the social treadmill. It ceased to amuse her. She felt there was something wanting to complete her happiness. She lost her buoyancy of disposition, her high spirits disappeared, even her beauty paled. She became depressed and melancholy. People whispered that she was going into a decline. There had been a case of consumption in the family, they said. Her father, laughingly declaring that she was in love, asked for the name of the lucky man.
"Are you going to make the Prince happy at last, child?" he said.
"No, dad," she replied seriously. "It's nothing to do with that. Among all the men who've paid me attention there's not one I'd marry—now."
What seemed to Grace a more correct diagnosis of her trouble was made by Mrs. Wesley Stuart, her practical married friend:
"It's only your nerves, my dear—a natural reaction after the pace you've been going. What you need is a radical change of scene, something to stimulate your imagination. Take a trip around the world. If you'll go, I'll go with you."
Wesley Stuart was one of the big men in the Steel Trust and several times a millionaire. Gossip had long hinted that there was no love lost between him and his young wife, and she never denied it. He went his way; she went hers. She had all the money her expensive tastes called for, and this, coupled with a certain amount of natural cleverness, had given her considerable prominence in the artistic set. Her musicales were a success because her ready tact and intimate acquaintance with famous artists enabled her to surround herself with interesting people. Having some musical talent herself, she nourished the hopeless ambition that one day she would be able to sing in opera. Injudicious friends had encouraged her in this fatuous belief, and she had worked so hard and spent so much time and money studying with expensive teachers, with the idea of going on the stage, that at last her health gave way. Threatened with nervous breakdown, her physician had advised a long sea voyage, and this was just the opportunity she had been looking for. Both would have the other's company. If Grace would go, she wouldn't hesitate a second. As for her husband, he would be glad to be rid of her. She said it as a jest; in her heart she knew it was true. Not that she cared. Wesley gave her all the money she asked for and never interfered with her. According to her philosophy of life, theirs was as perfect a matrimonial understanding as she could wish for.