‘She has been staying in town, you know.’ There was just a quiver of Madeline’s eyelid; it said nothing of the natural rapacity behind. This man’s testimony was coming out in throes, and yet--it must be said--again she probed. ‘Then she will put you in touch again,’ she cried; ‘you will remember when you see her all the vigour of great issues and the fascination of great personalities. For a little while, anyway, after she comes, you will be in a world--far away from here--where people talk and think and live.’ He looked at her in wonder, not understanding, as indeed how could he? ‘Why,’ he said, ‘you speak of what YOU have done’; and before the truth of this she cast down her eyes and turned a hot, deep red, and had nothing to say. ‘No,’ he said, ‘my wife is not like that.’ He walked along in absorption, from which he roused himself with resentment in his voice. ‘I can not leave such a fabric of illusion in your mind. It irritates me that it should be there--about anybody belonging to me. My wife is not in the least what you imagine her. She has her virtues, but she is--like the rest. I can not hope that you will take to her, and she won’t like you either--we never care about the same people. And we shall see nothing of you--nothing. I can hardly believe that I am saying this of my own wife, but--I wish that she had stayed in England.’ ‘Mrs. Mickie!’ cried Madeline to a passing rickshaw, ‘what are you rushing on like that for? Just go quietly and peaceably along with us, please, and tell us what Mrs. Vesey decided to do about her part in ‘The Outcast Pearl’. I’m dining out tonight--I must know.’ And Mrs. Mickie was kind enough to accompany them all the rest of the way.