"And I had not the decency to let them, you imply." She laughed a little shortly. "Well, since you’ve started this conversation, I suppose we may as well have it out." Hugh’s hand clenched suddenly behind his back, and he stood very still. A little dully, he wondered what was coming. "I can only hope that you will be sensible and try and look at the matter from all points of view." She, too, lit a cigarette, and stared at him deliberately. "In the first place, I suppose I’ve changed—considerably. And in order to save any misunderstanding, it’s just as well that we should both know where we stand." "You mean you don’t love me any more?" said her husband, slowly. "Don’t be ridiculous," she cried. "I never said anything of the sort. I’m very fond of you. But——" she stirred a little restlessly in her chair. "I’ve never believed, as you know, in beating about the bush, and there is another man whom I’m very fond of, too." The dull, sickening blow, which well-nigh stunned him mentally, showed not at all on Hugh Massingham’s face. "One can’t help these things," continued his wife, gravely, "and I think you’ll agree that it is best for everybody to discuss matters as they are—rather than go on living as if they were otherwise." "Quite," he murmured, grimly. "Please go on." "We need neither of us insult our intelligences by regarding the matter in the light that our fathers and mothers would have looked at it. The fact that a married woman falls in love with a man who is not her husband is not a thing to hold up hands of pious horror at—or so it seems to me; it is just a thing which has happened, and if one is sensible, the best course is to see the most satisfactory way out for all concerned. Don’t you agree?" "Your argument certainly has its points," concurred Hugh. Great heavens! was this conversation real, or was he dreaming? "Jimmy Staunton has kissed me—but that’s all." His wife was speaking again, and he listened dully. "Jimmy Staunton! Is that the man’s name?" He threw his cigarette, long gone out, into the grate. "Yes—that is the man. He’s been asking me for months to go away with him, but I’ve refused. I didn’t tell him why, but I’m going to tell you now. I wouldn’t go until you’d come home, and I’d seen you again, and made sure—that——" She hesitated, and the man laughed grimly. "Made sure that you really did love Mr. Jimmy Staunton more than me! Dreadful thing to make a second mistake."