“It is very easy to explain,” said she. “Do not all the people who spend their lives in the practice of any art, clever people generally, and capable of hard thinking as well as hard living, waste their efforts for the careless enjoyment of others who have not half their brains, or their courage, or their capacity? The rich _parvenu_ who doesn’t know a Rubens from a Rembrandt, patronizes the rising painter and delights afterward in the boast that he ‘made that man, sir.’ The wise man writes for fools to read. And the actress gives days of study to her share in a piece which the dressmaker in the pit condemns as ‘very poor stuff.’ It is always the same.” “You speak very bitterly.” “Yes. For you see I range myself on the side of the hard-working, capable ones. Don’t you know how I have spent these last four years?” “No, no; do tell me,” said George, with a shrewd guess at her answer, bending lower over her in his interest. “I have spent them on the stage.” “The stage!” echoed another voice. They both started and looked round. Behind them, leaning against the wall, not far from the door, was Harry, in his dressing-gown, pale, heavy-eyed, sullen. He looked at his wife with fierce eyes and frowning brows. “So you are an actress! I don’t wonder you were ashamed to tell me how you passed your time.” “I was not ashamed, Harry,” said Annie, calmly, rising and going toward him. “If you think I ought to be, you have only to say a word and you shall never be troubled with me again.” “You are in a great hurry for me to say that word, and, by Jove, for once I feel inclined to please you! An actress! No wonder I find you ready to listen to soft words from any man! No wonder the words from me which used to set you blushing for pleasure can’t touch you now! You are just a thing for everybody to look at--not a wife for me! Go away; I would rather fall than that you should touch me!” He was tottering, and his forehead was wet with weakness and passion. He would not take George’s help, but staggered along by the wall to the door. There the housekeeper met him, and Annie, standing still in the middle of the picture-gallery, heard him say: “Brandy, for Heaven’s sake, brandy, whether it is poison to me or not!” CHAPTER XVII. Annie turned with a piteous expression of face to George when her angry husband had left them. “What can one do with a man like that?” she said. “It is impossible to reason with him, impossible to understand him. He is like an overgrown child.” “I don’t know about that,” answered George, quietly. “I think I can understand this last outbreak pretty well.” “What do you mean?” “Why, when you left him, you were a little timid lily, whose charm was quite lost upon a great senseless brute like that,” said George, with sentiment; “now you have come back a----”