"Mary, really, don't be absurd. Let me tell you that there's not one man in a hundred who could stand ..." and he moved a step farther away. "Could stand what?" She came nearer to him. "My caring for you so much?" Half-a-minute passed in something near torture, as she played with his tie again, and he controlled himself and spoke with a determinedly kind smile. "Go along and dress for dinner," he said. "What shall I wear?" "Oh! Your pretty yellow teagown," he answered. She could not go out in that, he was reflecting, and if he suddenly wanted to go for a walk---- "Very well, Nigel. Oh, dear Nigel! I don't mean to be disagreeable." "I'm sure you don't," he answered, "let's leave it at that, my dear." "All right," she said smiling, and went away, with a rather coquettish kiss of the hand to him. He opened the door and shut it after her, with gallant attention. Then he threw up his arms with a despairing gesture. "My God! What a woman! Why--why was I such a fool? ... How much longer _can_ I bear it?" The Hilliers' relatives and intimate friends often said cheerfully about them: "Mary is very fond of Nigel, but she rather gets on his nerves." * * * * * No one seemed yet to have discovered that there was a large double tragedy in that simple, commonplace sentence. CHAPTER VI FUTURISM It had long been Nigel's dream, since he had practically given up all hope of calm and peaceful happiness at home, to have, at least, a secret sorrow that everyone knew of and sympathised with. And certain people did feel for him, understanding the great worry of his wife's morbid jealousy. But the general public thought him extremely fortunate to have married a woman--or rather a young girl--whose enormous wealth was only equalled by her extraordinary devotion. Yet from the one person who mattered, the look of tacit sympathy was denied him. How it would have soothed him and made him absolutely happy! And Bertha was the only human being who must never be allowed to know of his domestic troubles. She was extremely proud, and it would have caused her great anger and pain to think that after throwing her over (as he really had, for worldly advantages), he should then want to come back, complain ungratefully of the benefactress he had chosen and philander and amuse himself again. So he had never referred to his unhappy life. His plan was deeper than that. It was to appear merely the amusing friend, until by some chance, he should feel his way to be more secure; to be, in fact, a kind of tame cat, a _camarade_, useful, and intellectually sympathetic, unselfishly devoted--until, perhaps, the time might come when she might find she could not do without him. His calculations happened to be completely wrong, but that, of course, he could not know. Like all collectors, whether of women or of any other works of art or nature, although a connoisseur, he did not quite recognise the exceptional when he met