“What a queer girl you are!” His voice was steady, but he made a furtive movement toward the grate, where there were fire irons--efficient weapons--if he wanted them. He was thinking uneasily, in his common, literal way, that she was a big woman, that she looked deuced queer, that a woman when her blood was up was ten times worse than a man. “What a queer girl you are!” he repeated rather timidly. “Do you forgive him?” Her head was down on her breast. “I love him,” she said, almost sullenly. Sutton surveyed her in silence for a moment or so: anything out of the ordinary run of emotions struck him dumb. He had expected her to rage, to cry, to be hysterical, and end by dropping into his ready arms. “You might have guessed,” he said at last. “Has he ever treated you as if you were his wife? Have any of us treated you as if you were his wife? You are not mistress here; the very servants see how things are; they never come to you for orders. The manager grins openly in your face.” “Yes,” she said thoughtfully, thinking it all over and remembering a thousand damning incidents. “Why,” Sutton went on, “if you had been his wife, he would have kicked Milligan out of the place long ago; he would have kicked us all out. Where have your eyes been, my dear girl? Think! Did any of those men bring their wives or sisters?” She shook her fair, dull head: it seemed to sink lower on her breast as Sutton went fluently on: “This flat is a bachelor establishment; he and I are the tenants. If you were his wife I shouldn’t be here; the place is only a bandbox. I’ll take you to the church where they were married to-morrow morning; you shall see the register.” “I don’t want to see it. I know that woman is his wife. I should have known it from the first, when I saw her hanging on his arm in the Strand. She is his wife. But I? What am I?” Sutton said: “Do you remember the night when Milligan came here with a lady?” A queer expression of distaste crossed her white face. She remembered. There had been a quarrel between her and Edred--one of the usual sharp disputes. She had reproached him for bringing only men to the flat. She remembered her quick, foaming flood of reproach and invective in answer to his cold sneers. She remembered that when she stopped, panting for breath, he had said: “Well, is that all? Good Heavens! how you women can jaw!” That night Milligan had brought Lady Milligan with him to dinner. When they had gone Edred asked her, with an ugly look, if she were satisfied now. “What more did she want?” Lady Milligan! A dark young girl, with a tightly-curled fringe like a door mat, a half dirty blouse, red hands. She remembered. “Yes, Lady Milligan,” she said to Sutton. “A vulgar woman; but what could one expect? She used to serve in a tobacconist’s shop.” Sutton laughed. “Lady Milligan,” he said, “is nearly fifty; a very religious, proper woman. Do you understand?”