"Leonora," began Mrs. Mortomley, "you are the only friend I ever had in my life. I am never likely to have another; but sooner than submit to this eternal lecturing I would rather kiss and say good-bye now, than go on to an open quarrel. Why can we not agree to differ; why cannot Mr. Werner leave my husband to manage his own affairs, and you leave me to order my way of life as seems most satisfactory to me? You think you are doing great things for your husband because, at his desire, you invite City notables and their wives to dinner, and perhaps you may be. All I can say is, I should not be doing Archie any service by inviting them here. I do not know whether rich City snobs and snobesses hate _you_--perhaps not as there is a real live lord, not a Lord Mayor, amongst your relatives--but they hate me. If I had never come in contact with one of them it might have spared us some enemies; and I never mean so long as I live to come in contact with another, except those who are unavoidable, such as Antonia's elderly young man, for instance. There is nothing I can do or wear or say right in their eyes. I feel this. I know it. They detest me because I am different from them, and they do not think, as I was not a lady of fortune or a lord's niece, I have any right to be different. I do not know why oil should impute it as a sin to water, that it is water and not oil, but these people who cannot mix with me and with whom I cannot mix, do impute it to me as a sin that I am myself and not them. There is the case in a nutshell, Mrs. Werner, and I fail to see why you and I should quarrel over it." "But, Dolly, do you think it prudent to have so many guests here in whom it is impossible for your husband to take an interest?" "If they do not interest they amuse him," was the reply. "And I think anything which brings him out of his laboratory even for a few hours must be advantageous to him mentally and physically. I do not believe," continued Dolly, warming with her subject, "in men living their lives in the City, or else amongst colours and chemicals. When we come to compare notes in our old age, Leonora, I wonder which faith, yours or mine, will be found to have contained temporal salvation." Mrs. Werner looked down on the slight figure, at the eager upturned face, and then speaking her thoughts and that of many another person aloud, said, "I cannot fancy you old, Dolly. I think if you live to be elderly you will be like the Countess of Desmond, who was killed by a fall from a cherry-tree in her hundred and fortieth year." Mrs. Mortomley's laugh rang out through the clear summer air.