‘And so I thought I would run up this afternoon to discharge my debt. I deposited the stakes on a corner of your mantelpiece. If you see Mr. Arbuthnot before I do, tell him, from me, that he has won,--that I am bankrupt! You will forgive me for invading your sitting-room, without leave, will you not?’ Still Dinah did not speak. Her eyes glowed, deepened until their soft English hazel seemed turned to black. ‘I have known you long enough--we are sufficiently intimate,’ went on Linda, feeling that she was being forced into the fencing attitude--‘for me to venture on such a liberty?’ ‘You can venture where you choose.’ Forth came the reply in Dinah’s full, rounded tones. ‘The room is Gaston’s. How can I question your right of entering it? But I must ask you not to speak of intimacy. If I saw you daily, until the last day I live, I should never be intimate with you.’ Her voice was crystal clear, by reason of its low pitch. Every word was weighted by passionate, long pent-up feeling. Linda Thorne shifted about, ill at ease, on the feet that a minute ago had danced under her weight so airily. ‘We ought, positively, to see more of each other! I think it quite too charming of you to be so sincere--quite. I always say to my friends--“Mrs. Arbuthnot has that most refreshing, that rarest of gifts, sincerity.”’ ‘Do you say this? Saying this, do you mean to speak well of me?’ ‘Dearest Mrs. Arbuthnot! Can you doubt the honesty of my intentions?’ ‘Never say it again. Be generous enough at least to spare me your praise.’ The rapier points had lost their buttons. Linda Thorne fell into position quickly. That Dinah, good Griselda-like woman, loved her careless husband to the pitch of jealous idolatry, had been patent to her long before. Still, viewing the Arbuthnot household from her own level, Linda’s judgment was--that Griselda had consolations. Mild ones, if you will: the devotion of Lord Rex Basire, impartially offered to every pink-and-white nonentity he came across; the constant society, tinged by that glamour which beautiful women confer on all their relationships, of the excellent, detestable Scotch cousin, Geoffrey Arbuthnot. But consolations, nevertheless. And this judgment sharpened her reply. ‘If I were to refrain from praising you, my dear creature, I should lay myself open to the charge of envy, the one vice,’ observed Linda, with pathetic self-depreciation, ‘which I am free from. Every man in this island, my own good husband included, sounds your praise. You have absolutely a queue--I mean,’ considerately translating, ‘a little train of conquests! Lord Rex Basire, Mr. Geoffrey Arbuthnot.’ ‘I ask you to stop! In the class of life I come from,’ exclaimed Dinah, aflame, ‘we hold it unworthy for a married woman to make conquests.’ ‘Rather severe, surely! Cleopatra may never have known she had conquered, until Anthony’s peace was gone.’ ‘Just as we hold it unworthy in any woman, married or single, to beguile the husband of another.’