"I should not think much of it, my dear, if I were you," said the countess. "Madame Vanira is very beautiful and very accomplished--all gentlemen like to be amused." "I cannot argue," said Lady Chandos; "I can only say that my own instinct and my own heart tell me there is something wrong, that there is some tie between them. I know nothing of it--I cannot tell why I feel this certain conviction, but I do feel it." "It is not true, I am sure, Marion," said the countess, gravely. "I know Lance better than any one else; I know his strength, his weakness, his virtues, his failings. Love of intrigue is not one, neither is lightness of love." "Then if he cares nothing for Madame Vanira, and sees me unhappy over her, why will he not give her up?" "He will if you ask him," said Lady Lanswell. "He will _not_. I have asked him. I have told him that the pain of it is wearing my life away; but he will not. I am very unhappy, for I love my husband." "And he loves you," said the countess. "I do not think so. I believe--my instinct tells me--that he loves Madame Vanira." "Marion, it is wicked to say such things," said the countess, severely. "Because your husband, like every other man of the world, pays some attention to the most gifted woman of her day, you suspect him of infidelity, want of love and want of truth. I wonder at you." Lady Marion raised her fair, tear-stained face. "I cannot make you understand," she said slowly, "nor do I understand myself. I only know what I feel, what my instinct tells me, and that is that between my husband and Madame Vanira there is something more than I know. I feel that there is a tie between them. He looks at her with different eyes; he speaks to her with a different voice; when he sung with her it was as though their souls floated away together." "Marion," interrupted the countess, "my dear child, I begin to see what is the matter with you--you are jealous." "Yes, I am jealous," said the unhappy wife, "and not without cause--you must own that. Ah, Lady Lanswell, you would be sorry for me if you knew all. See, it is wearing me away; my heart beats, my hands tremble, and they burn like fire. Oh, my God, how I suffer!" The Countess of Lanswell, in her superb dress of black velvet, sat by in silence; for the first time in her life she was baffled; for the first time in her life she was face to face with a human passion. Hitherto, in her cold, proud presence all passion had veiled itself; this unhappy wife laid hers bare, and my lady was at a loss what to say. In her calm, proud life there had been no room for jealousy; she had never known it, she did not even understand the pain.