"By what right I ask! By what right do you think I ask. Isn't she still my wife?" "She is your _wife_--but you have lost all right to supervise her actions. She is free of you--absolutely free. You made her free on the Club-house piazza yesterday. You have no more authority over her than any other man--you have less, indeed, for you renounced even that when you disowned her and cast her adrift." "So long as she bears my name, she shall not trail it in the mire in this town by a vulgar, public assignation, if I can prevent it. I have cause enough without that disgrace!" Lorraine declared. "Until the Courts have divorced us she shall be decent, ostensibly at least--afterward I don't care what she does nor when." Pendleton frowned. "That is discourteously blunt language, Lorraine," he replied. "It is not the time nor the _occasion_ to mince words," Lorraine retorted. "You are here by pre-arrangement and----" "That is a lie--and you know it's a lie," Pendleton answered. "In the light of _her_ past or of yours?" was the sneering question. Pendleton hesitated what to answer. The man was plainly laboring under intense excitement. His hands were trembling, his face was flushed, he was beating a tatoo on his boot with his crop. Suddenly Stephanie spoke. She had remained sitting down until now. "I think it is better that I should continue my walk," she remarked. "You men are not apt to come to an understanding, so let us go our respective ways. Mr. Pendleton, I thank you more than I can say--and I shall be glad to see you at my home any time you choose to call. I shall wait until you both are gone." "Come, Lorraine!" Pendleton laughed good-naturedly. "We will go together." On Stephanie's account he was willing to do anything to get him off. "No--we will _not_ go together," Lorraine replied curtly, ignoring the other's friendly tones and manner. "You'll go first, and I'll follow to see that you don't come back." His bearing was quite as insulting as his words, but Pendleton did not seem to notice. It was the indulgent man and the complaining boy. And Stephanie understood and gave Pendleton a quick glance of appreciation. He was trying to save her from further annoyance, she knew, and she loved him for it, but she had endured so much the last two years that she was hardened to a callous indifference. Once she would have been shamed to the earth by Lorraine's accusation; now it made no impression on her--she simply shrugged it aside. Indeed, she found herself studying its revelations as to her husband's character, and pitying him for this exposition of his weakness and vacillation. "Perhaps I would better go first since Mr. Lorraine is so exacting and distrustful of a _friend_," she interposed. "Good-bye, Montague," giving him her hand; "I seem to be unfortunate lately with all who are disposed to be nice to me. It won't always be so, I hope; I am not all bad!" she smiled.