She ceased and revived her smouldering cigarette and mused blinking through the smoke. She seemed for a time almost lost to the presence of her guest in a great daydream of womanstatecraft. “And so,” she said, “you’ve come, as they all come,—to join us.” “_Well_,” said Lady Harman in a tone that made Agatha turn eyes of surprise upon her. “Of course,” continued Lady Harman, “I suppose—I shall join you; but as a matter of fact you see, what I’ve done to-day has been to come right away.... You see I am still in my garden tweeds.... There it was down there, a sort of stale mate....” Agatha sat up on her heels. “But my dear!” she said, “you don’t mean you’ve run away?” “Yes,—I’ve run away.” “But—run away!” “I sold a ring and got some money and here I am!” “But—what are you going to do?” “I don’t know. I thought you perhaps—might advise.” “But—a man like your husband! He’ll pursue you!” “If he knows where I am, he will,” said Lady Harman. “He’ll make a scandal. My dear! are you wise? Tell me, tell me exactly, _why_ have you run away? I didn’t understand at all—that you had run away.” “Because,” began Lady Harman and flushed hotly. “It was impossible,” she said. Miss Alimony regarded her deeply. “I wonder,” she said. “I feel,” said Lady Harman, “if I stayed, if I gave in——I mean after—after I had once—rebelled. Then I should just be—a wife—ruled, ordered——” “It wasn’t your place to give in,” said Miss Alimony and added one of those parliament touches that creep more and more into feminine phraseology; “I agree to that—_nemine contradicente_. But—I _wonder_....” She began a second cigarette and thought in profile again. “I think, perhaps, I haven’t explained, clearly, how things are,” said Lady Harman, and commenced a rather more explicit statement of her case. She felt she had not conveyed and she wanted to convey to Miss Alimony that her rebellion was not simply a desire for personal freedom and autonomy, that she desired these things because she was becoming more and more aware of large affairs outside her home life in which she ought to be not simply interested but concerned, that she had been not merely watching the workings of the business that made her wealthy, but reading books about socialism, about social welfare that had stirred her profoundly.... “But he won’t even allow me to know of such things,” she said.... Miss Alimony listened a little abstractedly. Suddenly she interrupted. “Tell me,” she said, “one thing.... I confess,” she explained, “I’ve no business to ask. But if I’m to advise——If my advice is to be worth anything....” “Yes?” asked Lady Harman. “Is there——Is there someone else?” “Someone else?” Lady Harman was crimson. “On _your_ side!” “Someone else on my side?” “I mean—someone. A man perhaps? Some man that you care for? More than you do for your husband?...”