pictures, and there were amateur theatricals to be superintended, where the "eye of a true artist" was wanted, but where there was no use at all for a true artist's wife. And there were little scented notes to be answered, and their writers to be called upon; and as I had from the first accepted Fabian's assurance that an artist's marriage could be nothing more than an episode in his life, and that the less it interrupted the former course of his life the happier that marriage would be, there was nothing for me but to submit, and to live on, as I told you, outside.' 'But you were wrong, you should have spoken out to him--reproached him, moved him!' I burst out--jumping up, and playing, in great excitement, with the things on the mantelpiece, unable to keep still. 'I did,' she answered sadly. 'One night, when he was going to the theatre to act as usual--he had just got an engagement--he told me not to sit up, he was going to the Countess's to meet some great foreign painter--I forget his name. The mention of her name drove me suddenly into a sort of frenzy; for he had just been sweet to me, and I had fancied--just for a moment, that the old times might come back. And I forgot all my caution, all my patience. I said angrily, "The Countess, the Countess! Am I never to hear the last of her? What do you want in this idle great lady's drawing-rooms when your own wife is wearing her heart out for you at home?" Then his face changed, and I shook and trembled with terror. For he looked at me as if I had been some hateful creeping thing that had suddenly appeared before him in the midst of his enjoyment. He drew himself away from me, and said in a voice that seemed to cut through me, "I had no idea you were jealous." I faltered out, "No, no," but he interrupted me. "Please don't make a martyr of yourself, Babiole. Since you desire it, I shall come straight home from the theatre."' 'He ought to have married Miss Farington!' said I heartily.