“I shall,” he repeated, laughing foolishly, “have time for _you_ now.” Mrs. Conifer’s pretty, weak face stiffened into horror. She was thinking of the quiet Inn, with its perpetual, sanctified taste of cloisters and the Middle Ages; thinking of Kinsman’s rooms, with the high-art furbelows, the violin under the table, the untidy dhurries on the floor, the impressionist daubs which he had painted himself and hung on the wall to keep the blue plates company. She thought of the black, dingy doorway, of the girl with the savage face and the twinkling earrings. “Talk to me.” Conifer, who had shut the door carefully, half lifted her into the great chair by the fire and stretched himself at her feet on the rug, like a faithful dog. Their eyes met; his full of worship, hers of lava-like tears. “You love me?” she asked incredulously, the frozen look creeping more stiffly over her face. “I --I began to think----” She looked such a small, shrunken thing--as he told her afterward--that he felt quite anxious and remorseful. “Love!” he cried out boyishly; “I should think I did. Only business worries, you know, darling, enchain a man. He can’t be always saying it.” He took her in his arms. She shivered as he kissed her, taking her full punishment from his ardent lips. She had loved him all along--only him. She thought of Kinsman, in his stuffy, wooden room, with a fierce, ashamed loathing. She kept quiet a little, her head on her husband’s breast and his lips just flicking her face now and then. At last she broke out beseechingly: “Let us go away for a holiday.” “Very good idea. When?” “To-night--to-morrow, I mean. And, Dick--” “Yes.” “Let’s give up this house and go into the country. You can have a pony trap and a season ticket.” “That isn’t half a bad idea,” he responded lazily--he was too happy to be positive or vehement about anything. “The rent here is very high and I don’t see what we get for it.” * * * * * They went abroad for two months, and when they returned they took a house somewhere in Surrey. They lived there for four years--with a pony trap, a man for the garden, and all the other accessories of rural gentility. Mrs. Conifer was very happy. She had two charming children. She was in the third best set--the set which draws the line at tenant farmers, but thinks it rather a privilege to be invited to the Vicarage. She never thought of Kinsman, of that dazed, magic time when she had been a traitor to Dick. She only heard of him twice--once when they saw his name in the newspaper--co-respondent in a divorce suit or something of that sort--and wondered if it were the same man--_their_ Kinsman--casually over dinner.