But Perceval was like that. No man living--or so Althea believed--was so full of strange whimsies and fads as was Perceval Scrope! And so thinking of him she suddenly remembered, with a tightening of the heart, how often her husband's feet had trodden the way she was now treading, hastening from the house which she had just left to the house to which she was now going. Jealous of Joan Panfillen? Nay, Althea assured herself that there was no room in her heart for jealousy, but it was painful, even more, it was hateful, to know that there were people who pitied her because of this peculiar intimacy between Perceval and Joan. Why, quite lately, there had been a recrudescence of talk about their friendship, so an ill-bred busybody had hinted to Althea only the day before. The wife was dimly aware that there had been a time when Mrs. Panfillen had hoped to form with her an unspoken compact; each would have helped the other, that is, to "manage" Perceval; but the moment when such an alliance would have been possible had now gone for ever--even if it had ever existed. Althea would have had to have been a different woman,--older, cleverer, less scrupulous, more indifferent than she was, even now, to the man she had married, to make such a compact possible. When about to cross Great George Street she stopped and hesitated. Why should she do this thing, why leave her house at Joan Panfillen's bidding? But Althea, even as she hesitated, knew that she would go on. She had said that she was coming, and she was not one to break lightly even a light word. As she crossed Storey's Gate, she noticed the stationary cab of the old man who lived in Boar's Head Yard. It had been standing there when she had come in from her walk, and she felt a thrill of pity--the old man made a gallant fight against misfortune. She and Joan Panfillen were both very kind to him. Althea told herself that this sad world is full of real trouble, and the thought made her ashamed of the feelings which she had just allowed to possess and shake her with jealous pain. And yet--yet, though many people envied her, how far from happy Althea knew herself to be, and how terribly grey her life now looked, stretching out in front of her. As she passed into Birdcage Walk, and came close to the little iron gate which Mrs. Panfillen had told her was unlocked, she saw that a woman stood on the path of the tiny garden behind the railings.