“Oh, she did.” Miss Howe laughed. “Have you ever seen her in a temper? I have. I was a fool. I told her one day (you know how things come up) just something of the gossip about Kent and her. I thought it only kind. But you should have heard her. She was as healthily furious as a schoolgirl. That was so comfortable about Madala. She hadn’t that terrible aloofness of really big people. She didn’t withdraw into dignity. She just stormed.” Miss Howe laughed again. “I can see her now, raging up and down the room—‘Do you mean to say that people——? I never heard of anything so monstrous! What has it got to do with them? Why can’t they leave me alone? I’ve never done them any harm. I wouldn’t have believed it, pretending they liked me, and letting me be friends with them, and then saying hateful things behind my back. I’ll never speak to them again—never! That they should go about twisting things—Why can’t they mind their own business? And dragging in Kent like that! Oh, it does make me so wild!’ ‘Oh, well, my dear,’ I said to her, ‘when two people see as much of each other as you and Kent do, there’s bound to be talk.’ At that she swung round on me. ‘But he’s my _friend_,’ she said. ‘Yes,’ I said, ‘that’s just it.’ ‘But I’m not expected to marry everyone I’m fond of!’ ‘Are you fond of him, Madala?’ I asked her. ‘Yes,’ she said directly, ‘I am. I’m awfully fond of him. I’d do anything for him, bless his heart!’ ‘Well,’ I said, ‘you needn’t be so upset. That’s all that people mean. If you’re fond of him and he—he’s obviously in love with you——’ But at that she caught me up in her quick way—‘In love? Oh, you don’t understand him. Nobody understands Kent. He doesn’t understand himself. Dear old Kent!’ Then she began walking up and down the room again, but more quietly, and talking, half to herself, as if she had forgotten I was there, justifying herself, justifying him. ‘Dear old Kent! Poor old Kent! I’m awfully fond of Kent. So is he of me. But not in the right way. He’s got, when he happens to think of it, a great romantic idea of the woman he wants, of the wife he wants; but the truth is, you know, that he doesn’t want a wife. He wants a mother, and a sister, and a—a lover. A true lover. A patienter woman than I am. A woman who’ll delight in him for his own sake, not for what he gives her. A woman who’ll put him first and be content to come second with him. He’ll always put his work first. He can’t help it. He’s an artist. Oh, not _content_. I didn’t mean that. She must be too big for that—big enough to know what she misses. But a wise woman, such a loving, hungry woman. ‘Half a loaf,’ she’ll say to herself. But she’ll never have to let him hear. He’s chivalrous. He’d be horrified at giving her half a loaf. He’d say—“All or nothing!” But he couldn’t give her all. He couldn’t spare it. So he’d give her nothing out of sheer respect for her. That’s Kent. He’s got his dear queer theories of life—oh, they’re