"Daphne! what rubbish! I'm certain Elsie French never had such an idea in her head. She's awfully soft and nice; I never saw a bit of conceit in her." "She's soft outside and steel inside. Well, never mind! we don't get on. She's the old America, I'm the new," said Daphne, half frowning, half laughing; "and I'm as good as she." "You're a very good-looking woman, anyway," said Roger, admiring the vision of her among the warm browns and shining whites of her wrap. "Much better-looking than when I married you." He slipped an arm under the cloak and gave her small waist a squeeze. Daphne turned her eyes upon him. In their black depths his touch had roused a passion which was by no means all tenderness. There was in it something threatening, something intensely and inordinately possessive. "That means that you didn't think me good-looking at all, as compared with--Chloe?" she said insistently. "Really, Daphne!"--Roger withdrew his arm with a rather angry laugh--"the way you twist what one says! I declare I won't make you any more pretty speeches for an age." Daphne scarcely replied; but there dawned on her face the smile--melting, provocative, intent--which is the natural weapon of such a temperament. With a quick movement she nestled to her husband's side, and Roger was soon appeased. * * * * * The visit which followed always counted in Roger Barnes's memory as the first act of the tragedy, the first onset of the evil that engulfed him. They found the old Duchess, Mrs. Fairmile, and Dr. Lelius, alone. The Duchess had been the penniless daughter of an Irish clergyman, married _en secondes noces_ for her somewhat queer and stimulating personality, by an epicurean duke, who, after having provided the family with a sufficient store of dull children by an aristocratic mother, thought himself at liberty, in his declining years, to please himself. He had left her the dower-house--small but delicately Jacobean--and she was now nearly as old as the Duke had been when he married her. She was largely made, shapeless, and untidy. Her mannish face and head were tied up in a kind of lace coif; she had long since abandoned all thought of a waist; and her strong chin rested on an ample bosom. As soon as Mrs. Barnes was seated near her hostess, Lelius--who had an intimate acquaintance, through their pictures, with half the great people of Europe--began to observe the Duchess's impressions. Amused curiosity, first. Evidently Daphne represented to her one of the queer, crude types that modern society is always throwing up on the shores of life--like strange beasts from deep-sea soundings.