Here the narrator of Phœbe Elles’ fortunes stopped and hesitated, a little overcome by a reflection that necessarily occurred to her. Presently she resumed. “Tell me, do you disapprove of poor Phœbe?” “I can hardly form an opinion, can I, without knowing the rights and wrongs of the case. But as a general thing--Was he unfaithful to her?” “No indeed, she only wishes he were!” Mrs. Elles broke out, in an uncontrollable burst of candour. “Now, I’ve shocked you,” she said, looking up into his face and bitterly repenting her flippant outspokenness. She went on, nervously, “You think she ought to have stuck to her post--ought not to have thrown up her cards like that.” She was translating the thoughts that she thought she could read on his face, and expostulating with them. “But still, you know, I had--a woman has surely a right to live her own life?” “Only another phrase for selfishness,” he retorted vehemently. “I hate it. Nobody has a right. Our lives are far too inextricably bound up with other lives for us to be able to assume complete freedom. We can’t live our own lives--anything like it--for the very sufficient reason that it isn’t to be done without spoiling other people’s.” “But you seem to be able to manage to do it--live your own life--in the way I mean?” Mrs. Elles retorted, in the heat of argument, carrying the war into the enemy’s country. “I am a selfish beggar, I daresay, and don’t practice what I preach.” He spoke sharply, bending down over his drawing, and she felt that she had been tactless to force the personal application. She fancied that it was a touch of remorse at his curtness that made him say presently, in a benignant manner, “And what is your friend doing now?” “Oh, Phœbe is all right for the present. She is comparatively free; she does not have to sit opposite that man at breakfast every morning and listen to his coarse jokes and shiver at his impossible manners all day long. Now, she is in the society of--persons--congenial to her, at least.... I really must write to Phœbe.” “Don’t bring her here, for heaven’s sake!” exclaimed Rivers, in real or affected alarm. “I should have to pack up my traps and bolt at once.” “Oh, don’t be afraid of poor Phœbe!” pleaded Mrs. Elles, not without some appreciation of the humour of the situation. “You really wouldn’t mind her if you knew her, I do assure you. Anyhow she wouldn’t be any worse than I.” “Oh, by Jove, though, but she would! A woman with a grievance is worse than anything else in the world.” “Of course,” Mrs. Elles replied, with some dignity--she did not like being snubbed, even in the person of her pseudo-self,--“I am not thinking of asking Phœbe here. I shall not even put an address when I write. I will send the letter to a friend to forward. You know I have my own reasons for not wishing the world to know where I am--at present.”