A tiny pink-hued veil reached to the tip of Linda’s nose. We may assume that the veil concealed Linda’s usual percentage of well-applied rice powder. But a gleam of white anger showed through veil and powder alike. A nervous quiver worked around her thin lips. For a moment it seemed as though Mrs. Thorne’s vulnerable point were found, as though her antagonist’s last thrust had gone home. Then she recovered herself without too palpable effort. She laughed good-humouredly. ‘Our strain is getting over-tragic. We live in the day of little things. Sensation is out of vogue. Nobody pushes husbands down wells. Nobody “beguiles” the husbands of worthier people. Even if it were otherwise, if Viviens were as the sands of yonder Channel, your happiness, dear Mrs. Arbuthnot, would be secure.’ It must be confessed that Linda made her counter-stroke with admirable neatness. ‘A beautiful woman married to an artist holds him in chains, rose-decked ones, of course, but chains--_chains_.’ She forced Dinah to touch fingers. She covered her retreat under a little roulade of interjections sent back, with grimace of friendliness, across an expressive shoulder. ‘So fortunate we left the _Princess_! Never could dear Robbie have stood the terrors of that night! One hears whispers on all sides of heroic courage! Mrs. Arbuthnot’s name foremost!’ Then Linda Thorne tripped down the hill, by virtue of superior coolness mistress, outwardly, of the situation, but with her heart thumping uneasily, with the queerest, hottest sense experience had ever brought her of discomfiture and defeat. That Dinah’s temper had reached the point which chemists call flashing point was certain. Another encounter like this, with sharpened memories on both sides, probably with the added element of an audience, and either Linda Thorne or Dinah Arbuthnot must become ridiculous. It was a dilemma, thought Linda, out of which the finest tact, the cleverest self-effacement, could scarcely help one. She was like a prime minister--the presumptuous simile tickled her--a prime minister who, having lost the lead of the House, would fain transfer his power, gracefully, to the chief of the Opposition.