“How’s your young man? George’s been away a long time. Wouldn’t he be wild if he knew what a rollicking time the mouse has when the cat’s away. It’s just like men; they expect us to be jolly when they want us, and we jolly well have to be—but as for being jolly when they’re away—oh, Lord, no, that’s shocking. My lord may carry on with as many as he likes, but one woman one man. Thank goodness, they’re easily bamboozled.” Mrs. Harding did not remain for long. She did not care for dull company, which Marian undoubtedly was this afternoon. She felt a trifle mean, too. She did not know for what purpose Davis desired the information he had asked her to obtain, but believed it to be for Maddison, and knew that if such was the case, Marian’s next meeting with him would not be pleasant. Marian did not go out that day or the next, spending her time reading and dozing over the fire. She hoped to hear from West, but no message of any sort came from him. On the third day, she dressed early in the afternoon, and went in the omnibus down to Regent Street. As she stepped on to the pavement at Oxford Circus, she knocked against a man who was passing. He did not notice her, but she recognized West, and with him the woman she had seen at the Gaiety. They were evidently absorbed in one another, so much so that he did not apologize to Marian for an accident which was more than half his fault. Her first impulse was to walk up to him and speak to him. Then a sickening sense of the difference between the other woman and herself stopped her; they could not be rivals. She had set her wares before West, and if he did not wish to buy them, she could not force him to do so. She went slowly on past the shops, to look into the windows of which was usually a pleasure to her, but now she saw nothing except a vague throng going to and fro; she heard vaguely the roar of the traffic; she was looking vaguely straight ahead at her future, and listening to its call. This was then the end of her ambitions? Well, after all, did it matter so much to her? There were other joys in life, and while she retained her beauty, she need not want for luxury and ease. The future called to her and her vicious blood soon answered almost gladly, almost eagerly; she had sipped already at the cup of unruly pleasures, she would drink deep of it now. The thought of reckless, unrestrained, unlicensed enjoyment intoxicated her. As she passed a painted, over-dressed Frenchwoman, she thanked God that she was not such as that one. Not such to look at; but the very relics of decency in her seemed to drive her on to acting like the lowest of them all. As for Maddison—she would write and tell him she was tired of him. He would probably make a scene, but that would not hurt her, and then she would be free.