Woman and Artist

by Max O'Rell

"And those?" said Dora, indicating two couples passing near her.

"The Earl of Gampton. Behind him the Countess, a young American woman, who brought him three million dollars, with which he has been able to get his coat-of-arms out of pawn. Our British aristocracy gets regilded in Chicago and New York."

"How can a woman love or respect a man who allows himself to be purchased for a title of nobility?"

"And," said Lorimer, "how can a man love or respect a woman who buys him, and degrades him in his own eyes?"

"You are right," responded Dora. "I cannot see any possible element of happiness in such marriages. She is ugly," she added, after taking a second look at the Countess.

"Beauty fades," said Lorimer, in excuse for Lord Gampton.

"Yes, but ugliness remains," replied Dora.

"And the dollars, too, happily—it is a compensation—a fine indemnity."

"Not always; fortunes have been known to fade too."

"Ah," ejaculated Lorimer, as there passed by him a middle-aged man, fairly good-looking, but wearing a forbidding, sulky expression, "there is Sir George Hardy. He has not inflicted his wife on you."