But before she had come down to the breakfast room where her husband was reading a newspaper in the morning, she had thought a good deal upon another matter that disquieted her in some degree. She had been exuberant (she thought) at having had sufficient strength given to her to run away from her lover; but then she had not dwelt upon the rather important circumstance that all the running away had not been on her side. What were the facts as revealed by the narrative of Mr. Ayrton? Why, simply, that while she was putting on that supreme toilet which she had prepared for the delight of the eyes of her lover (feeling herself to be a modern Cleopatra), that lover of hers was sitting on the cushions of a first-class carriage, flying along to Southampton; and while she had been lying among the cushions of her drawing room, waiting tremulously, nervously, ecstatically, for the dreary minutes to crawl on until the clock should chime the hour of nine, he was probably lighting his first pipe aboard the yacht _Water Nymph_. What did it matter that she had lifted her hot face from her cushions and had fled in wild haste to the arms of Phyllis Ayrton? The fact remained the same; it was he who had run away from her. That was a terrible reflection. Hitherto she had never felt humiliated. She had not felt that he had insulted her by his kisses; she had given him kiss for kiss. She had but to hold up her finger and he was ready to obey her. But now--what was she to think of him? Had ever man so humiliated woman? She had offered him, not her heart but her soul--had he not told her a few days before that he meant her to give him her soul? and when she had laid heart and soul at his feet--that was how she put it to herself--he had not considered it worth his while to take the priceless gift that she offered to him. “He will answer to me for that,” she said, as she thought over her humiliation, in front of her dressing-glass that morning, while her maid was absent from the room. Her wish was now not that her prayer had been less earnest, but that it had not been uttered at all. It was necessary for her to meet him again in order that he might explain to her how it came that he had preferred the attractions incidental to a cruise with Lord Earlscourt and his friends to all that she had written to offer him. And yet when her husband, after having quite finished with his paper, said: “It’s very awkward that Herbert Courtland is not in town.” She merely raised her shoulders an inch, saying: “I suppose that he has a right to take a holiday now and then. If you didn’t telegraph to him from Paris, you cannot complain.” “I felt certain that I should find him here,” said the husband. “Here?” said the wife, raising her eyebrows and casting an offended glance at her husband. “Here?” He smiled in the face of her offended glance.