will never matter to him any more; that was just sentiment and nonsense; now, he only wants to know what _she_ says;--that's business! He writes with her in his mind--and when he has finished something he sends it off to her, straight. I may see it when all the world may--but she has the first-fruits!" And in poor Doris's troubled mind the whole scene--save the two central figures, Lady Dunstable and Arthur--seemed to melt away. She was not the first wife, by a long way, into whose quiet breast Lady Dunstable had dropped these seeds of discord. She knew it well by report; but it was hateful, both to wifely feeling and natural vanity, that _she_ should now be the victim of the moment, and should know no more than her predecessors how to defend herself. "Why can't I be cool and cutting--pay her back when she is rude, and contradict her when she's absurd? She _is_ absurd often. But I think of the right things to say just five minutes too late. I have no nerve--that's the point!--only _l'esprit d'escalier_ to perfection. And she has been trained to this sort of campaigning from her babyhood. No good growling! I shall never hold my own!" Then, into this despairing mood there dropped suddenly a fragment of her neighbour, the Colonel's, conversation--"Mrs. So-and-so? Impossible woman! Oh, one doesn't mind seeing her graze occasionally at the other end of one's table--as the price of getting her husband, don't you know?--but--" Doris's sudden laugh at the Colonel's elbow startled that gentleman so that he turned round to look at her. But she was absorbed in the menu, which she had taken up, and he could only suppose that something in it amused her. A few days later arrived a letter for Meadows, which he handed to his wife in silence. There had been no further discussion of Lady Dunstable between them; only a general sense of friction, warnings of hidden fire on Doris's side, and resentment on his, quite new in their relation to each other. Meadows clearly thought that his wife was behaving very badly. Lady Dunstable's efforts on his behalf had already done him substantial service; she had introduced him to all kinds of people likely to help him, intellectually and financially; and to help him was to help Doris. Why would she be such a little fool? So unlike her, too!--sensible, level-headed creature that she generally was. But he was afraid of losing his own temper, if he argued with her. And indeed his lazy easy-goingness loathed argument of this domestic sort, loathed scenes, loathed doing anything disagreeable that could be put off. But here was Lady Dunstable's letter: Dear Mr. Arthur,--Will your wife forgive me if I ask you to come to a tiny _men's_ dinner-party next Friday at 8.15--to meet the President of the Duma, and another Russian, an intimate friend of Tolstoy's? All males, but myself! So I hope Mrs. Meadows will let you come.