not so much greater a sign that one hadn’t lived for nothing than the grim understanding he had in the interest of peace just arrived at with himself. She asked why he hadn’t been to her for so long, much as if this failure were only a vulgar form of social neglect; and she scarce seemed to note it either as a good or as a poor excuse when he said he had stayed away because he knew her to be deep in business. But she didn’t deny the impeachment; she admitted she had been busier than ever in her life before. She looked at him as if he would know what that meant, and he said he was very sorry for her. “Because you think it’s all a mistake? Yes, I know that. Perhaps it is, but if so it’s a magnificent one. If you were scared about me three or four months ago I don’t know what you’d think to-day—if you knew! I’ve risked,” she yet all portentously simply stated, “everything.” “Fortunately I don’t know anything,” he said. “No indeed. How should you?” “And to tell the truth,” he went on, “that’s really the reason I haven’t been back here till to-night. I haven’t wanted to know—I’ve feared and hated to know.” “Then why did you come at last?” “Well, out of the most illogical of curiosities.” “I suppose then you’d like me to tell you where I’ve been to-night, eh?” she asked. “No, my curiosity’s satisfied. I’ve learnt something—what I mainly wanted to know—without your telling me.” She stared an instant. “Ah you mean whether Madame Grandoni had gone? I suppose Assunta told you.” “Yes, Assunta told me, and I was sorry to hear it.” The Princess looked grave, as if her old friend’s departure had been indeed a very awkward affair. “You may imagine how I feel it! It leaves me completely alone; it makes, in the eyes of the world, an immense difference in my position. However, I don’t consider the eyes of the world. At any rate she couldn’t put up with me any more; it appears I’m more and more of a scandal—and it was written!” On Hyacinth’s asking what the old lady would do she said: “I suppose she’ll go and live with my husband. Funny, isn’t it? that it should have always to be with one of us and that it should matter so little which.” Five minutes later she inquired of him if the same reason he had mentioned just before was the explanation of his absence from Audley Court. Mr. Muniment had told her he hadn’t been near him and the sister for more than a month. “No, it isn’t the fear of learning something that would make me uneasy: because somehow, in the first place, it isn’t natural to feel uneasy about Paul, and because in the second, if it were, he never lets one see anything—of any effect or impression on him. It’s simply the general sense of real divergence of view. When that divergence becomes sharp there are forms and lame pretences——” “It’s best not to try to keep up? I see what you mean—when you’re grimly sincere. But you might go and see the sister.” “I don’t like the sister,” Hyacinth frankly averred.