“Really? You once said he was a temperamental romantic, I know. Are you trying to justify that now by building up a mountain out of a molehill?” “I am not. Events are simply confirming my previous psychological deductions, that’s all,” said Sallie with bland dignity. I was glad that Claire was not in the room. Like all egotists, she is driven nearly to frenzy by a display of egotism in anybody else. “In all this,” said I, “there is one person who is never mentioned. What about Mr. Harter?” There was a pause. Then Martyn remarked: “Negligible, I should think.” “Possibly, as a personality. But as a man and a husband, he exists. It is even conceivable that he has feelings.” “Oh, _feelings_!” said Sallie and Martyn, more or less together. The tone of each expressed the utmost contempt. “Some people might even go so far as to say that he has rights.” “To a certain extent, so he has,” said Sallie, evidently determined to be broad-minded. “Presumably she made the usual undertakings when she married him. But from all accounts, they’ve each gone their own way ever since they married. From a sentimental point of view, it can hardly matter what she does now. Perhaps she’s working up for a divorce.” “If so, it’s bad luck on Patch. He can’t want to marry her.” But to that Sallie replied thoughtfully, “I’m not so sure.” “Are they together a great deal?” Martyn queried. “Mrs. Kendal speaks as though they were never to be seen apart, but she bases that upon their having gone into the butcher’s shop at the same time, which she appears to regard as peculiarly incriminating.” “He takes her for a walk every day and sees her home whenever they’re at the same parties, but I can’t personally see why he shouldn’t do that,” Sallie declared. “All this gossip and tittle-tattle makes me sick. Whatever they do it’s their own business and nobody else’s.” Again I mentioned Mr. Harter’s name, and it met with as little acclamation as before. “He’d better come to England if he doesn’t like his wife to have friendships.” “Do you suppose she writes and tells him about them?” asked Sallie ironically. “One has links, as Lady Annabel would say. He’s probably heard all about it, and rather more than all, from some officious soul who thinks he ought to know. After all, Mrs. Harter was Diamond Ellison, the plumber’s daughter, and pretty well-known, at least by name, to everybody here, let alone that she’s the sort that always does get talked about.” “She interests me a good deal, as a psychological study,” said Sallie. “But as a matter of fact, I don’t consider that she’s behaving well.” “You mean that what she’s doing--getting herself talked about with Patch, while her husband is abroad--is anti-social?” Martyn suggested. “Yes, exactly. I’ve no feelings, personally, as to the rights or wrongs of anything, from an ethical point of view, but I do bar the sort of thing that can only be called anti-social.”