“Oh no! no! Let us hope it won’t come to that. Mind, I’m not accusing Madge of anything but foolish flirting. She made a dead set at him, I must say that. I don’t believe that otherwise he would have taken any notice of her. But Madge is so vain. And then she has an idea she isn’t happy with her husband. Well! a wife must make the best of the man she marries. I make a point of getting on with Louis.” “I’m sure you do, dear,” interrupted her aunt. “You’re so wise.” “But you think she’s really staying on to----?” “I fear that the excuse of her illness is only half true. She’s staying on I believe to--well, to go on with the flirtation, let us say.” Madame Didier laughed a little, and took a fresh thread of silk. “Madge is a nice little thing, of course, but she’s very flighty. I can’t help thinking that she must have fallen under some bad influence lately. She comes from _such_ a good home. I used to stay with her at her father’s house just outside York, when we were schoolgirls. The Etheridges are county people, you know. Not very rich, but well connected, and in the _nicest_ set. No fastness or anything horrid of that sort. The right sort of quiet county people. You know what I mean. We rather thought she might have done better than a country doctor.” “Dr. Dakin is _extremely_ well connected,” put in Mrs. Carfax a little stiffly. He was a neighbour after all, and she felt that the slighting reflection might easily extend from the faculty, to the Church, of which her husband was so distinguished an ornament. “Oh yes, I’m sure of it,” Madame Didier hastened to reply. “And a clever man, I hear.” “Extremely clever. And devoted to his wife. This will be a terrible blow.” Mrs. Carfax leant back in her chair, and wondered whether she should write to George, or wait till her return. She decided to wait. A verbal recitation would be more effective. “Oh! let us hope she will recover her senses and return to her home. I feel terribly distressed about it, as it was in my house she met Monsieur Fontenelle.” “No! She met him first at Miss Page’s,” corrected Mrs. Carfax. “I _thought_ he seemed very attentive that evening. He was talking to her a long time after dinner.” Madame Didier looked up sharply from her work. “Who _is_ this Miss Page?” she asked. “How does she come to know Monsieur Fontenelle?” “She’s a most charming woman. We are very proud of her at Dymfield. I suppose she met Monsieur Fontenelle abroad. She has travelled a great deal.” “Ah!” Madame Didier took another thread of silk, and matched it carefully. “I only wondered,” she went on, “because Madge was so reticent about her. Naturally, when I saw her becoming so very intimate with Monsieur Fontenelle, I inquired about the woman who was responsible for the first introduction. But I could gather nothing from Madge except that Miss Page was a beautiful woman, and apparently a paragon of all the virtues.” Madame Didier sniffed slightly, and began to fold up her work.