I assumed she had come to give me wholly undeserved thanks for revenging her upon her recreant husband. I tried to look civil and courteous, but I felt that my face was darkening--her very presence forced forward things I had been keeping in the far background of my mind. “How can I be of service to you, madam?” said I. “I bring you good news,” she replied--and I noted that she no longer looked haggard and wretched, that her beauty was once more smiling with a certain girlishness, like a young widow’s when she finds her consolation. “Mowbray and I have made it up,” she explained. I simply listened, probably looking as grim as I felt. “I knew you would be interested,” she went on. “Indeed, it means almost as much to you as to me. It brings peace to _two_ families.” Still I did not relax. “And so,” she continued, a little uneasy, “I came to you immediately.” I continued to listen as if I were waiting for her to finish and depart. “If you want, I’ll go to Anita.” Natural feminine tact would have saved her from this rawness; but, convinced that she was a “great lady” by the flattery of servants and shopkeepers and sensational newspapers and social climbers, she had long since discarded tact as worthy only of the lowly and of the aspiring before they “arrive.” “You are too kind,” said I. “Mrs. Blacklock and I feel competent to take care of our own affairs.” “Please, Mr. Blacklock,” she said, realizing that she had blundered, “don’t take my directness the wrong way. Life is too short for pose and pretense about the few things that really matter. Why shouldn’t we be frank with each other?” “I trust you will excuse me,” said I, moving toward the door--I had not seated myself when she did. “I think I have made it clear that we have nothing to discuss.” “You have the reputation of being generous and too big for hatred. That is why I have come to you,” said she, her expression confirming my suspicion of the real and only reason for her visit. “Mowbray and I are completely reconciled--_completely_, you understand. And I want you to be generous, and not keep on with this attack. I am involved even more than he. He has used up his fortune in defending mine. Now you are simply trying to ruin me--not him, but _me_. The President is a friend of Mowbray’s, and he’ll call off this horrid investigation, and everything’ll be all right, if you’ll only stop.” “Who sent you here?” I asked. “I came of my own accord,” she protested. Then, realizing from the sound of her voice that she could not have convinced me with a tone so unconvincing, she hedged with: “It was my own suggestion, really it was.” “And your husband permitted _you_ to come to _me_?” She flushed. “And you have accepted his overtures when you knew he made them only because he needed your money?”