"I did not say that he had insulted me." "I infer it. Am I right or wrong?" Still not looking at him, she made an impatient gesture with both hands. "Allowing you are right. What then?" He did not reply for several minutes. He was stroking his amber mustache with one white, well-shaped hand; his eyes were now turned from hers, hers from him. "I shall go abroad in a short time. I shall go in less than a fortnight," he said. It was a most audacious thing to say, and he knew it thoroughly. It was the bold stroke that must either annul his hopes completely, or feed them with a fresh life. Claire seemed to answer him only with the edges of her lips. "How does that concern me?" "In no way. I did not say it did. But you might choose to sail a week or two later. Alone, of course. It would be Paris, with me. You have told me that you wanted very much to see Paris." She turned and faced him, then, more agitated than angry. "You speak of my husband having insulted me. What are you doing now?" "I am trying to save you." "Good Heavens! from what?" "From him. Listen. I did not mean for you to go directly to Paris. You would travel. But at a certain date I could meet you there. I could meet you with--well, with a document of importance." "Explain. I don't understand you at all." "Suppose I put the case in certain legal hands here. Suppose they worked it up with skill and shrewdness. Suppose they gained it. Suppose they secured a divorce between you and him on--grounds" ... "Well? What grounds?" "Of infidelity. You know the life he has lived. Or rather, you don't know. He has been so gay, so prominent, of late, that almost any well-feed lawyer could"-- Claire interrupted him, there. "Leave me at once," she said, pointing toward the door. "Leave me. I order you to do it!" He obeyed her, but stopped when he had nearly reached the threshold. "As my wife," he said, "you would reign more proudly than you have ever reigned yet. The moment you were free I would be so glad to make you mine--you, the loveliest woman I ever knew, and the most finely, strictly pure!" "Leave me," she repeated; but he had quitted the room before her words were spoken. She glanced in the direction whence his voice had come to her, and then, seeing that he was gone, she dropped back upon the sofa, and sat there, staring straight ahead at nothing, with tight-locked hands and colorless, alarmed face. XX.