“You are content to leave a good deal to my imagination, I see.” He flushed angrily. She came up to him slowly. “James, we must both be careful. We must not quarrel.” Her hands grasped the lapels of his long lounging robe. There was an appealing look in her eyes that checked the harsh words even as they rose to his lips. He found himself looking into those dark eyes with the same curious wonder in his own that had become so common of late. Time and again he had been puzzled by something he saw in their liquid depths, something that he could not fathom, no matter how deeply he probed. “What is there about you, Yvonne, that hurts me--yes actually hurts me--when you look at me as you're looking now?” he cried almost roughly. “We have been married a scant four months,” she said gently. “Would you expect a woman to shed her mystery in so short a time as that?” “There is something in your eyes------” he began, and shook his head in utter perplexity. “You startle me once in a while. There are times when you seem to be looking at me through eyes that are not your own. It's--it's--quite uncanny. If you------” “I assure you my eyes are all my own,” she cried flippantly, and yet there was a slight trace of nervousness in her manner. “Do you intend to be nice and good and reasonable, James? I mean about poor Frederic.” His face clouded again. “Do you know what you are doing to that boy?” he asked bluntly. “Quite as well as I know what you are doing to him,” she replied quickly. He stiffened. “Can't you see what it is coming to?” “Yes. He was on the point of leaving your house, never to come back to it again. That's what it is coming to,” she said. “Do you mean to say------” “He was packing his things to go away to-day------” “Why--why, he'd starve!” cried the man, shaken in spite of himself. “He has never done a day's labour; he doesn't know how to earn a living. He------” “And who is to blame? You, James; you! You have tied his hands, you have penned him up in------” “We will not go into that,” he interrupted coldly. “Very well. As you please. I said that he was going away, perhaps to starve, but he has changed his mind. He has taken my advice.” “Your advice?” “I have advised him to bide his time.” “It sounds rather ominous.” “If he waits long enough you may discover that you love him and his going would give you infinite pain. Then is the time for him to go.” “Good Heaven!” he cried in astonishment. “What a remarkable notion of the fitness------” “That will be his chance to repay you for all that you have done for him, James,” said she, as calm as a May morning. “Have I ever said that I do not love him?” he demanded shortly. “For that matter, have you ever said that you do not hate him?” “By Jove, you are a puzzle to me!” he exclaimed, and a fine moisture came out on his forehead. “Let the boy alone, James,” she went on earnestly. “He is------”