"Let me beg you, at any rate, to write and tell Lord Cathedine that we will not trouble him for any more of these kind offices. And, moreover, I shall not go to any of these houses in the autumn unless I am quite certain he has had nothing to do with it." "I have accepted," said Letty, breathing hard. "I cannot help that. You should have been frank with me. I am not going to do what would destroy my own self-respect." "No--you prefer making love to Lady Maxwell!" He looked steadily a moment at her pallor and her furious eyes. Then he said, in another tone: "Letty, does it ever occur to you that we have not been married yet five months? Are our relations to each other to go on for ever like this? I think we might make something better of them." "That's your lookout. But as to these invitations, I have accepted them, and I shall go." "I don't think you will. You would find it wouldn't do. Anyway, Cathedine must be written to." "I shall do nothing of the kind!" she cried. "Then I shall write myself." She rose, quivering with passion, supporting herself on the arm of her chair. "If you do, I will find some way of punishing you for it. Oh, if I had never made myself miserable by marrying you!" Their eyes met. Then he said: "I think I had better go and dine at the club. We are hardly fit to be together." "Go, for heaven's sake!" she said, with a disdainful gesture. Outside the door he paused a moment, head bent, hands clenched. Then a wild, passionate look overspread his young face. "It is her evening," he said to himself. "Letty turns me out. I will go." Meanwhile Letty stood where he had left her till she had heard the street-door close. The typical, significant sound knelled to her heart. She began to walk tempestuously up and down, crying with excitement. Time passed on. The August evening closed in; and in this deserted London nobody came to see her. She dined alone, and afterwards spent what seemed to her interminable hours pacing the drawing-room and meditating. At last there was a pause in the rush of selfish or jealous feeling which had been pulsing through her for weeks past, dictating all her actions, fevering all her thoughts. And there is nothing so desolate as such a pause, to such a nature. For it means reflection; it means putting one's life away from one, and looking at it as a whole. And to the Lettys of this world there is no process more abhorrent--none they will spend more energy in escaping.