"Why did I go?" Tressady hesitated, then looked down upon his wife. "Well!--I suppose I went because Lady Maxwell is very interesting to watch--because she is sympathetic and generous, and it stirs one's mind to talk to her." "Not at all!" cried Letty, passionately. "You went because she is handsome--because she is just a superior kind of flirt. She is always making women anxious about their husbands under this pretence of politics. Heaps of women hate her, and are afraid of her." She was very white, and could hardly save herself from the tears of excitement. Yet what was working in her was not so much Harding Watton's story as this new and strange manner of her husband's. She had sat haughtily silent in the carriage on their way home, fully expecting him to question her--to explain, entreat, excuse himself, as he had generally been ready to do whenever she chose to make a quarrel. But he, too, said nothing, and she could not make up her mind how to begin. Then, as soon as they were shut into his room her anger had broken out, and he had not yet begun to caress and appease her. Her surprise had brought with it a kind of shock. What was the matter? Why was she not mistress as usual? As she made her remark about Marcella, Tressady smiled a little, and played with a cigarette he had taken up. "Whom do you mean?" he asked her. "One often hears these things said of her in the vague, and never with any details. I myself don't believe it. Harding, of course, believes anything to her disadvantage." Letty hesitated; then, remembering all she could of Harding's ill-natured gossip, she flung out some names, exaggerating and inventing freely. The emphasis with which she spoke reddened all the small face again--made it hot and common. Tressady raised his shoulders as she came to the end of her tirade. "Well, you know I don't believe all that--and I don't think Harding believes it. Lady Maxwell, as you once said yourself, is not, I suppose, a woman's woman. She gets on better, no doubt, with men than with women. These men you speak of are all personal and party friends. They support Maxwell, and they like her. But if anybody is jealous, I should think they might remember that there is safety in numbers." "Oh, that's all very well! But she wants _power_, and she doesn't care a rap how she gets it. She is a dangerous, intriguing woman--and she just trades upon her beauty!" Tressady, who had been leaning with his face averted from her, turned round with sparkling eyes. "You foolish child!" he said slowly--"you foolish child!" Her lips twitched. She put out a shaking hand to her cloak, that had fallen from her arms. "Oh! very well. I sha'n't stay here to be talked to like that, so good-night." He took no notice. He walked up to her and put his hands on her shoulders.