"I can't help it!" she said, with emphasis. "I did my best with it, Arthur, but I'm not a genius at dressmaking. Never mind. Nobody will take any notice of me." He quite crossly rebuked her. She really must spend more on her dress. It was unseemly--absurd. She looked as nice as anybody when she was properly got up. "Well, don't buy any more copper coal-scuttles!" she said slyly, as she straightened his tie, and dropped a kiss on his chin. "Then we'll see." They went down to dinner, and on the staircase Meadows turned to say to his wife in a lowered voice: "Lady Dunstable wants me to go to them in Scotland--for two or three weeks. I dare say I could do some work." "Oh, does she?" said Doris. * * * * * What perversity drove Lady Dunstable during the evening and the Sunday that followed to match every attention that was lavished on Arthur Meadows by some slight to his wife, will never be known. But the fact was patent. Throughout the diversions or occupations of the forty-eight hours' visit, Mrs. Meadows was either ignored, snubbed, or contradicted. Only Arthur Meadows, indeed, measuring himself with delight, for the first time, against some of the keenest brains in the country, failed to see it. His blindness allowed Lady Dunstable to run a somewhat dangerous course, unchecked. She risked alienating a man whom she particularly wished to attract; she excited a passion of antagonism in Doris's generally equable breast, and was quite aware of it. Notwithstanding, she followed her whim; and by the Sunday evening there existed between the great lady and her guest a state of veiled war, in which the strokes were by no means always to the advantage of Lady Dunstable.