"Oh, she can’t do him any real harm," Evelyn said. "You do exaggerate things so delightfully. The marriage is not successful, I know—but no one would know it wasn’t if she had any tact. For he’s patient enough and forbearing." "Too forbearing," said Lady Wereminster. "If a man marries a fool he should treat her according to her folly. Once to give in to a blatant self-sufficient creature like Dora Farquharson is to give in for all eternity, and so pave the way to your own downfall. Fools and scandal-mongers are at the bottom of all the mischief in the world. There are very few systematic schemers and plotters, in spite of Sicilian melodrama. Mrs. Farquharson has a common soul. One doesn’t know how to deal with such a woman; the whole art of social warfare has to be re-learned. She’s flagrant; she uses every one; she’s used you; in the old days she traded on her father’s influence; now she trades on her husband’s." "Dora is rather inconsiderate," said Evelyn. "Her husband’s success might well turn her head." "Oh, her head’s a tee-to-tum," said Lady Wereminster; "you have only got to touch it with the finger of flattery for it to spin round and round like a top. She gives me a sort of moral vertigo. It’s rather a dangerous quality, by the bye, for the wife of a Minister in so important an office. A judicious questioner could get anything in the world out of Dora Farquharson; she’d be worth a fortune to Fleet Street——" She stopped abruptly. The eyes of the two women met. "Yes?" said Evelyn. "This is a secret," said Lady Wereminster, dropping her voice; "a real secret, mind. Your husband’s out, isn’t he? and the servant, I suppose, is concealed in that dark hole of yours you call a kitchen. All the same, I would be rather glad if you would open the door and take the trouble to look well down the passage before I tell you what I’ve got to say." "How absurd you are," said Evelyn, returning. "You’re quite safe; there’s no one in the house. I’ve looked in every room and under the beds!" "Thank you," said Lady Wereminster, with a sigh of relief. "It’s a serious matter, really, Evelyn. You know what friends Wereminster and Beadon have always been—allies from boyhood. Wereminster, of course, is like a rock. You strike and strike at him, and you don’t get even the vaguest echo. He’s the safest man in the world to confide in. He always declares he would never have found out that he was in love with me if I hadn’t told him first. And though I talk so much, I don’t as a rule talk personalities. That’s why people look upon us as safety valves, and we learn a good deal about small intrigues and difficulties that other people never hear." "Don’t say names, will you? I do so hate being told what I’m not meant to know."