"The way she is acting?" The echo was a faint, undecided one, and Mostyn's eyes groped back to the wayward face at his side. "Yes, and it is town talk," Marie went on. "You know people in the lower and middle classes will gossip about you lucky high-flyers. They know every bit as much about what is going on in your set as you do. They can't have the fun you have, so they take pleasure in riddling your characters or talking about those already riddled. Dick, your wife's affair with Andy Buckton is mentioned oftener than the weather. People say he always loved her and, now that he is rich and rolling high, that he is winning out. Many sporting people that I know glory in his 'spunk,' as they call it. They are counting on a divorce as a sure thing." "Can they actually believe that--" Mostyn's voice failed him; but the woman must have read his thought, for she said, quickly: "Don't ask me what they think. I know what _I_ think, and I'll bet I know her through and through. She is reckless to the point of doing anything on earth that will amuse her. She is so badly spoiled she is rotten. I know how you are fixed--oh, I know! You can't kill him; you don't love her enough for that; and besides, you know you can't prove anything serious against her. Her married women friends go about with men, and for you to object would only make you ridiculous. They sneer at women like me, I know; but Lord, they can't criticize me! I am myself, that's all. I can be a friend, and I can be an enemy. I want to be your friend, Dick." "My friend?" he repeated, with an inaudible sigh drawn from the seething reservoir of his gloom. "Yes, and not only that, but I want to give you some good, solid advice." "Oh, you do?" He forced a smile of bland incredulity. "I will tell you what is the matter with you, and how to get out of it. Dick, you have let this thing get on your nerves, and it is hurrying you to the grave or the mad-house. I know you well enough to know that it is on your mind day and night. Now, there is one royal road, and if you'll take it the whole dirty business will slip off of you like water off a duck's back." "What is that road, Marie?" he asked, affecting a lighter mood than he felt. "Why, it is simply to do as they are doing. Plunge in and have a good time. You made all the money you ever made when you were living the life of a red-blooded, natural man. Marrying that woman has given you cold feet, and she knows it. Forget it all. Sail in and be glad you are alive. Look at me. Things have happened to me that would have finished many a woman, but I took a cocktail, won a game of poker, and was as chipper as if nothing out of the way had happened." "You don't understand, Marie," he said, with a bare touch of his old reckless elation. "That may be all right for you, but--"