"What's Imogen up to just now?" Eddy asked, quite unruffled by Jack's
reflections on his beloved. "When did you see her last, Jack?"

"I went down for a dress-rehearsal the day before yesterday." Jack had
still the air of the nervous dog, walking cautiously, the hair of its back
standing upright.

"Oh, the Cripple-Hellenic affair. How Imogen loves running a show."

"And how well she does it," said Rose. "What a perfect queen she would have
made. She would have laid corner-stones; opened bazaars; visited hospitals,
and bowed so beautifully from a carriage--with such a sense of
responsibility in the quality of her smile."

"How inane you are, Rose," said Jack. "Nothing less queen-like, in that
decorative sense, than Imogen, can be imagined. She works day and night for
this thing in which you pretty young people get all the sixpences and she
all the kicks. To bear the burden is all she does, or asks to do."

"Why, my dear Jack," Rose opened widely candid eyes, "queens have to work
like fun, I can tell you. And who under the sun would think of kicking
Imogen?"

"Besides," said Eddy, rising to saunter about the room, his hands in his
pockets, "Imogen isn't so superhuman as your fond imagination paints her,
my dear Jack. She knows that the most decorative role of all is just that,
the weary, patient Atlas, bearing the happy world on his shoulders."

Mrs. Upton, in her corner of the sofa, had been turning the leaves of a
rare old edition, glancing up quietly at the speakers while the innocent