As for Athalie, it was now too late for him to step out of her life. He might have been capable of the sacrifice if the pain and unhappiness were to be borne by him alone--or even if he could bring himself to believe or even hope that it might be merely a temporary sorrow to Athalie. But he could not mistake her, now; their cords of love and life were irrevocably braided together; and to cut one was to sever both. There could be no recovery from such a measure for either, now. What was he to do? The woman he had married had rejected his loyalty from the very first, suffered none of his ideas of duty to move her from her aloofness. She cared nothing for him, and she let him know it; his notions of marriage, its duties and obligations merely aroused in her contempt. And when he finally understood that the only kindness he could do her was to keep his distance, he had kept it. And what was he to do now? Granted that he had brought it all upon himself, how was he to combat what was threatening Athalie? His wife had so far desired nothing of him, not even divorce. He could not leave Athalie and he could not marry her. And now, on her young head he had, somehow, loosened this avalanche, whatever it was--a suit for separation, probably--which, if granted, would leave him without his liberty, and Athalie disgraced. And even suppose his wife desired divorce for some new and unknown reason. The sinister advent of those men meant that Athalie would be shamefully named in any such proceedings. What was he to do? An ugly, hunted look came into his face and he swung around and faced the girl beside him: "Athalie," he said, "will you go away with me and let them howl?" "Dearest, how silly. I'll stay _here_ with you and let them howl." "I don't want you to face it--" "I shall not turn my back on it. Oh, Clive, there are so many more important things than what people may say about us!" "You can't defy the world!" "I'm not going to, darling. But I may possibly shock a few of the more orthodox parasites that infest it." "No girl can maintain that attitude." "A girl can try.... And, if law and malice force me to become your mistress, malice and law may answer for it; not I!" "_I_ shall have to answer for it." "Dearest," she said with smiling tenderness, "you are still very, very orthodox in your faith in folk-ways. That need not cause _me_ any concern, however. But, Clive, of the two pictures which seems reasonable--your wife who is no wife; your mistress who is more and is considered less?