As soon as the servant was gone, she said: “No doubt she'll lie to you. These women that steal other women's property are usually clever at fooling their own silly husbands.” “I do not intend to ask her,” I replied. “To ask her would be an insult.” She made no comment beyond a scornful toss of the head. We both had our gaze fixed upon the door through which Anita would enter. When she finally did appear, I, after one glance at her, turned--it must have been triumphantly--upon her accuser. I had not doubted, but where is the faith that is not the stronger for confirmation? And confirmation there was in the very atmosphere round that stately, still figure. She looked calmly, first at Mrs. Langdon, then at me. “I sent for you,” said I, “because I thought that you, rather than I, should request Mrs. Langdon to leave your house.” At that Mrs. Langdon was on her feet, and blazing. “Fool!” she flared at me. “Oh, the fools women make of men!” Then to Anita: “You--you--But no, I must not permit you to drag me down to your level. Tell your husband--tell him that you were riding with my husband in the Riverside Drive yesterday.” I stepped between her and Anita. “My wife will not answer you,” said I. “I hope, Madam, you will spare us the necessity of a painful scene. But leave you must--at once.” She looked wildly round, clasped her hands, suddenly burst into tears. If she had but known, she could have had her own way after that, without any attempt from me to oppose her. For she was evidently unutterably wretched--and no one knew better than I the sufferings of unreturned love. But she had given me up; slowly, sobbing, she left the room, I opening the door for her and closing it behind her. “I almost broke down myself,” said I to Anita. “Poor woman! How can you be so calm? You women in your relations with each other are--a mystery.” “I have only contempt for a woman who tries to hold a man when he wishes to go,” said Anita, with quiet but energetic bitterness. “Besides”--she hesitated an instant before going on--“Gladys deserves her fate. She doesn't really care for him. She's only jealous of him. She never did love him.” “How do you know?” said I sharply, trying to persuade myself it was not an ugly suspicion in me that lifted its head and shot out that question. “Because he never loved her,” she replied. “The feeling a woman has for a man or a man for a woman, without any response, isn't love, isn't worthy the name of love. It's a sort of baffled covetousness. Love means generosity, not greediness.” Then--“Why do you not ask me whether what she said is true?” The change in her tone with that last sentence, the strange, ominous note in it, startled me, “Because,” replied I, “as I said to her, to ask my wife such a question would be to insult her. If you were riding with him, it was an accident.” As if my rude repulse of her overtures and my keeping away from her ever since would not have justified her in almost anything.