"Gad, Sprowl!" sputtered the Major, "your wife grows handsomer every minute--and you grow fatter." Sprowl, midway in a glass of claret, said: "This simple backwoods regime is what she and I need." Agatha Sprowl was certainly handsome, but the Major's eyesight was none of the best. She had not been growing younger; there were lines; also a discreet employment of tints on a very silky skin, which was not quite as fresh as it had once been. Dr. Lansing, strolling on the veranda with his pipe, met her and her big dogs turning the corner in full sunlight. Coursay was with her, his eager, flushed face close to hers; but he fell back when he saw his kinsman Lansing, and presently retired to the lawn to unreel and dry out a couple of wet silk lines. Agatha Sprowl sat down on the veranda railing, exchanging a gay smile across the lawn with Coursay; then her dark eyes met Lansing's steel-gray ones. "Good-morning, once more," she said, mockingly. He returned her greeting, and began to change his mist leader for a white one. "Will you kindly let Jack Coursay alone?" she said, in a low voice. "No," he replied, in the same tone. "Are you serious?" she asked, as though the idea amused her. "Of course," he replied, pleasantly. "Is it true that you came here because he came?" she inquired, with faint sarcasm in her eyes. "Yes," he answered, with perfect good-nature. "You see he's my own kin; you see I'm the old-fashioned sort--a perfect fool, Mrs. Sprowl." There was a silence; he unwound the glistening leader; she flicked at shadows with her dog-whip; the Great Danes yawned and laid their heavy heads against her knees. "Then you _are_ a fool," she concluded, serenely. He was young enough to redden. Three years ago she had thought it time to marry somebody, if she ever intended to marry at all; so she threw over half a dozen young fellows like Coursay, and married Sprowl. For two years her beauty, audacity, and imprudence kept a metropolis and two capitals in food for scandal. And now for a year gossip was coupling her name with Coursay's. "I warned you at Palm Beach that I'd stop this," said Lansing, looking directly into her eyes. "You see, I know his mother." "Stop what?" she asked, coolly. He went on: "Jack is a curiously decent boy; he views his danger without panic, but with considerable surprise. But nobody can tell what he may do. As for me, I'm indifferent, liberal, and reasonable in my views of ... other people's conduct. But Jack is not one of those 'other people,' you see." "And _I_ am?" she suggested, serenely. "Exactly; I'm not your keeper." "So you confine your attention to Jack and the Decalogue?" "As for the Commandments," observed Lansing, "any ass can shatter them with his hind heels, so why should he? If he _must_ be an ass, let him be an original ass--not a cur." "A cur," repeated Agatha Sprowl, unsteadily.