"He felt it the more," Mrs. Rossiter stated in her impartial way, "because I doubt if he had the price of his dinner in his pocket." It was then that she gave me to understand that if it were not that Mildred was lending him money he would have nothing to subsist on at all. Mildred had a little from her grandfather Brew, being privileged in this respect because she was the only one of the first Mrs. Brokenshire's children born at the time of the grandfather's demise. The legacy had been a trifle, but from this fund, which had never been his father's, Hugh consented to take loans. "Hugh, darling," I said to him the next time I had speech with him, "don't you see now that he's irreconcilable? He'll either starve you into surrender--" "Never," he cried, thumping the table with his hand. "Or else you must take such work as you can get." "Such work as I can get! Do you know how much that would bring me in a week?" "Even so," I reasoned, "you'd have work and I should have work, and we'd live." He was hurt. "Americans don't believe in working their women," he declared, loftily. "If I can't give you a life in which you'll have nothing at all to do--" "But I don't want a life in which I'll have nothing at all to do," I cried. "Your idle women strike me as a weak point in your national organization. It's like the dinner-parties I've seen at some of your restaurants and hotels--a circle of men at one table and a circle of women at another. You revolve too much in separate spheres. Your women have too little to do with business and politics and your men with society and the fine arts. I'm not used to such a pitiless separation of the sexes. Don't let us begin it, Hugh, darling. Let me share what you share--" "You won't share anything sordid, little Alix, I can tell you that. When you're my wife you'll have nothing to think of but having a good time and looking your prettiest--" "I should die of it," I exclaimed but this he took as a joke. That had passed in January. What Ethel Rossiter told me the next time I lunched with her was that Lady Cecilia Boscobel had accepted her invitation and was expected within a few weeks. She repeated what she had already said of her, in exactly the same words. "She's a good deal of a girl, Cissie is." My heart leaped and fell almost simultaneously. If I could only give up Hugh in such a way that he would have to give me up, this girl might help us out of our impasse. Had Mrs. Rossiter stopped there I might have made some noble vow of renunciation; but she went on: "If she wants Hugh she'll take him. Don't be under any illusion about that." Though my quick mettle was up, I said, docilely: "Oh no, I'm not. But if you mean taking him away from me--well, a good many people have tried it, haven't they?" "Cissie Boscobel hasn't tried it." But I was peaceably inclined. "Oh, well," I said, "perhaps she won't. She may not think it worth her while."