"Clement, you must be mad to insult me by such a suggestion!" "Not in the least, my dear. The Duchess is complacent, and why not you? It is my whim; I have said it. Or perhaps you would prefer me to bring the lady to you this afternoon." "If that woman ever sets foot in this house," Lady Frobisher gasped. "If she ever comes here——" "You will be polite and amiable to her, I am sure," Frobisher said in a purring voice, though his eyes flashed like little pin-points of flame. "Or perhaps I had better ask the Bensteins to dinner. Sit down." Lady Frobisher had risen, and Sir Clement did the same thing. Angela sat there breathlessly. With a slow, gliding movement Frobisher crept round the table to his wife’s side. He took her two hands in his and gazed steadily into her face. Her eyes were dilated, her lips were parted, but she said nothing. Just for an instant she had one glance into the flame of passion and evil that Frobisher would have called his soul. "You are not going to make a scene," he said, in the same caressing, silken voice that made Angela long to rise and lay a whip about his shoulders. "After all, Mrs. Benstein has a great pull over many women that you nod and smile to and shake hands with across afternoon tea-tables—she is quite respectable. Besides, this is part of my scheme, and I expect to be—well, we won’t say obeyed. As a personal favour, I ask you to meet me in this matter." Lady Frobisher dropped into a chair and her lips moved. Her voice came weak and from a long way off. "I’ll do as you wish," she said. "Of course, it would be far better if somebody else——" Frobisher skipped from the room whistling an air as he went. The sudden grin flashed all his teeth gleamingly. "She is going to cry," he muttered, "and I cannot stand a woman’s tears. If there is one thing that cuts me to my shrinking soul, it is the sight of a lovely woman’s tears." *CHAPTER XI.* *BORROWED PLUMES.*