There was no recurrence of the physical agony; and after two days the feeling of prostration passed away, and only the memory of the attack remained.
The idea of lionizing her children's governess, and introducing her to soi-disant "fashionable society," had taken possession of Mrs. Andrews's mind, and she was quite as much delighted with her patronizing scheme as a child would have been with a new hobby- horse. Dreams at which even Macaenas might have laughed floated through her busy brain, and filled her kind heart with generous anticipations. On Thursday she informed Edna that she desired her presence at dinner, and urged her request with such pertinacious earnestness that no alternative remained but acquiescence, and reluctantly the governess prepared to meet a formidable party of strangers.
When Mrs. Andrews presented Sir Roger Percival, he bowed rather haughtily, and with a distant politeness, which assured Edna that he was cognizant of her refusal to make his acquaintance at the opera.
During the early part of dinner he divided his gay words between his hostess and a pretty Miss Morton, who was evidently laying siege to his heart and carefully flattering his vanity; but whenever Edna, his vis-a-vis, looked toward him, she invariably found his fine brown eyes scrutinizing her face.
Mr. Manning, who sat next to Edna, engaged her in an animated discussion concerning the value of a small volume containing two essays by Buckle, which he had sent her a few days previous.
Something which she said to the editor with reference to Buckle's extravagant estimate of Mill, brought a smile to the Englishman's lip, and bowing slightly, he said: "Pardon me, Miss Earl, if I interrupt you a moment to express my surprise at hearing Mill denounced by an American. His books on Representative Government and Liberty are so essentially democratic that I expected only gratitude and eulogy from his readers on this side of the Atlantic."
Despite her efforts to control it, embarrassment unstrung her nerves, and threw a quiver into her voice, as she answered: "I do not presume, sir, to 'denounce' a man whom Buckle ranks above all other living writers and statesmen, but, in anticipating the inevitable result of the adoption of some of Mill's proposed social reforms, I could not avoid recalling that wise dictum of Frederick the Great concerning philosophers--a saying which Buckle quotes so triumphantly against Plato, Aristotle, Descartes--even Bacon, Newton, and a long list of names illustrious in the annals of English literature. Frederick declared: 'If I wanted to ruin one of my provinces I would make over its government to the philosopher.' With due deference to Buckle's superior learning and astuteness, I confess my study of Mill's philosophy assures me that, if society should be turned over to the government of his theory of Liberty and Suffrage, it would go to ruin more rapidly than Frederick's province. Under his teachings the women of England might soon marshal their amazonian legions, and storm not only Parnassus but the ballot-box, the bench, and the forum. That this should occur in a country where a woman nominally rules, and certainly reigns, is not so surprising, but I dread the contagion of such an example upon America."