“I suppose so, and Mrs. Wingfield talked; we all know what a tongue she has!” Allestree laughed, leaning back in his chair with his hands clasped behind his head. “Well, she’s going, anyway.” “But she isn’t,” sighed Mrs. Allestree; “she’s to stay over two months, heaven knows why!” “The Lord deliver Margaret then!” exclaimed her son, still laughing. Mrs. Allestree nodded sagely. “Margaret can hold her own though, Robert, and everybody knows how she has insulted Mrs. Wingfield. Margaret’s _bon mots_ have convulsed the town time and again. You know, as well as I do, that it was Margaret who set half the stories going about her. Margaret can do and say the most shocking and heartless things at one moment and be the most charming creature at the next. She often seems to me to be a perfect Undine, to have no soul! Really, sometimes her treatment of White is impossible. Even Lily Osborne professes to be shocked at the dance the other night; she told Martha O’Neal that it was as suggestive as Salome.” “Mrs. Osborne is a hypocrite,” retorted Allestree scornfully; “by the way, I’m to paint her portrait. I put it at a figure which, I thought, was prohibitive and precluded all possibility of an order, but she closed it at once, without turning an eyelash.” Mrs. Allestree gave him a long, comprehending look. “White pays for it then,” she remarked dryly. “Of course,” he replied, “and White pretends to quarrel with his wife’s wild ways!” The old woman set down her teacup and looked mournfully into the fire. “It’s a terrible business from beginning to end,” she said finally; “when I think of those two poor babies! Little Estelle is just beginning to notice things too, and Margaret seems utterly indifferent to them. What is the world coming to?” Allestree laughed and patted his mother’s hand. “You can’t regulate it, mother,” he said cheerfully. “Heaven forbid! There are too many divorces; one can’t go out now without meeting men with two wives and women with a plurality of husbands; yet we are objecting to seating the Mormons in Congress!” “After all, is a divorce worse than such a marriage as Margaret’s?” her son rejoined, indolently enjoying the controversy. “There should have been no marriage,” she retorted firmly, pushing back her chair and rising with a rustle of silks, “White could never have loved her, he hasn’t been true to her for a moment. Her beauty pleased him, or that charm which is more subtle than beauty and which makes her what she is. Now he’s lost his head over the gorgeous coloring, the flesh and blood of Lily Osborne; she would have pleased Rubens, Robert. By the way, Martha O’Neal told me of a curious rumor about her; it is said that she is in the secret employ of the Russian Government; you know she has no conscience.” “A spy?” Allestree laughed, “but why here? We’ve done Russia a good turn, it’s Japan that is chewing the rag.”