‘Death! Nonsense! I am not likely to die, nor are you. And I don’t see what you want to get a separation for. I will go away for a time if you like. I will make any promises you want me to make; but why you should bring a lawyer into it, I cannot imagine. The fact is, you are making a fuss about nothing, and I am not going to say good-bye at all. I will take a trip abroad, and by the time I come back I daresay all this will have blown over and you will be glad to see me.’ She said nothing, but simply turned from him, and sitting quietly down at her desk resumed the letter she had been writing when he entered. ‘Do you hear me?’ he repeated querulously. ‘I sha’n’t say good-bye.’ She did not speak; her pen moved swiftly over the paper before her, but otherwise she never moved. ‘I am sure it is no wonder,’ he continued crossly, ‘that the Government protests against too much independence being allowed to women! What tyrants they would all become if they could have everything their own way as much as you can! Women ought to be gentle and submissive; and if they are fortunate enough to be wealthy, they ought to use their wealth for their husbands’ benefit. That is the natural order of creation—woman was made to be subservient to man, and when she is not, things always go wrong.’ Still Delicia wrote on without uttering a word. He paused a moment, then observed,— ‘Well, I’m quite worn out with all this rumpus! I shall go to bed. Good-night, Delicia!’ At this she turned and looked at him fully. ‘Good-night!’ she said. Something in the transparent beauty of her face and the dark tragedy of her eyes awed him. She looked as if during the past few minutes she had risen above and beyond him to a purer atmosphere than that of earth. The majority of men hate women who look so; and Carlyon was painfully conscious that he had suddenly grown to hate Delicia. She had entirely changed, he thought. From a loving, tender idolater of his manly graces and perfections, she had become a proud, cynical, fault-finding, unforgiving ‘virago.’ This latter term did not suit her at all, but he considered that it did; for, as usual, by the aid of man’s logic, he deemed himself the injured party and she the injuring. And irritated beyond measure at the queenly tranquillity of her demeanour, he muttered something profane under his breath, and dashing aside the _portière_ with a clatter of its brazen rings and a violence that threatened to tear its very substance, he left the room. As soon as he had gone, Delicia moved slowly to the door and shut and locked it after him; then as slowly returned to her chair, where, leaning her head back against the carved escutcheon, she quietly fainted. *CHAPTER XII*