She was a splendid character--with British limitations. Among those limitations her attitude toward Colonials was, as I saw things, the first. She rarely spoke of Canadians or Australians; it was always of Colonials, with a delicately disdainful accent on the word impossible to transcribe. Geography, either physical or ethnic, was no more her strong point than it is that of other women; and I think she took Colonials to be a kind of race of aborigines, like the Maoris or the Hottentots--only that by some freak of nature they were white. So, whenever my heart was so hot that I could contain myself no longer, and I poured out my foolish tales of the big things we hoped to do for the empire and the world, the dear thing would merely utter her dazed, "Fancy!" and strike me dumb. And it all threw me back on the thought of Larry Strangways. Reader, if you suppose that I had forgotten him you are making a mistake. Everything made my heart cry out for him--Hugh's inanity; his father's lumbering dignity; Mildred's sepulchral apothegms, which were deeper than I could fathom and higher than I could scale; Cissie Boscobel's stolid scorn of my country; and Newport's whole attitude of taking no notice of me or mine. Whenever I had minutes of rebellion or stress it was on Larry Strangways I called, with an agonized appeal to him to come to me. It was a purely rhetorical appeal, let me say in passing. As it would never reach him, he could not respond to it; but it relieved my repressed emotions to send it out on the wings of the spirit. It was the only vehicle I could trust; and even that betrayed me--for he came. He came one hot afternoon about the 20th of August. His card was brought to me by the rosebud Thomas as I was taking a siesta up-stairs. "Tell Mr. Strangways I shall come down at once," I said to my footman knight; but after he had gone I sat still. I sat still to estimate my strength. If Larry Strangways made such an appeal to me as I had made to him, should I have the will-power to resist him? I could only reply that I must have it! There was no other way. When Hugh had been so true to me it was impossible to be other than true to him. It was no longer a question of love, but of right: and I couldn't forsake my maxim.