"Don't be funny. I was saying you weren't fit to tie her boot-laces, but I can't expect you to see that. And you have practically told her you suspect her of an intrigue with Jim Spencer. Now, if she was the sort of woman you seem to think she is, that would be the very way to drive her into it. Personally, I wish she was, but she isn't, and we must make the best of it. But what you have done is to show her, if further demonstration were necessary, your own utter depravity. Of the sickening folly of that, I needn't speak. Go on: what did she say then?" "She said she didn't care in the slightest degree whether I believed she went to Lady Devereux's or not. She also said that Jim was coming to lunch. So of course I shall go home to lunch." Mildred laughed outright. "You have the most wonderful power of choosing the only impossible thing to do or say," she remarked. "That is the one thing out of the question. The impeccable attitude of guardian angel, my dear Jack, is the one attitude that cannot be made to pose well. Nor have you the figure for it." They rode on a little while in silence. "Have your own way, then," he said at length. "Of course I shall. Poor old Jack, how you do manage to put your foot in it! And I have to pull you out so often. Aren't you grateful to me?" "Not particularly this moment." "Well, you will be soon. You needn't tell me when you are. A good action is its own reward, and I am bursting with an approving conscience this morning. I've helped Guardina and Pagani, I've helped you." "Yourself perhaps?" "That also is my reward. I didn't think of myself--at least, not much." She looked at him with a gay and kindled eye; the exercise had brought the blood into her face, and it was impossible to credit her with the six-and-thirty years which she had assured Marie were hers. And looking at her, his smarting ill-humour evaporated. "How is it one never gets tired of you?" he said. She laughed. "Because I do not let you get accustomed to me," she answered.