"Is it stronger than dislike, Phil?" "Y-es." "Contempt?" "No." "What is it?" "It is that--I have not yet--become--reconciled." "To my--folly?" "To mine." She strove to laugh lightly, and failing, raised her glass to her lips again. "Now you know," he said, pitching his tones still lower. "I am glad after all that we have had this plain understanding. I have never felt unkindly toward you. I can't. What you did I might have prevented had I known enough; but I cannot help it now; nor can you if you would." "If I would," she repeated gaily--for the people opposite were staring. "We are done for," he said, nodding carelessly to a servant to refill his glass; "and I abide by conditions because I choose to; not," he added contemptuously, "because a complacent law has tethered you to--to the thing that has crawled up on your knees to have its ears rubbed." The level insult to her husband stunned her; she sat there, upright, the white smile stamped on her stiffened lips, fingers tightening about the stem of her wine-glass. He began to toss bread crumbs to the scarlet fish, laughing to himself in an ugly way. "_I_ wish to punish you? Why, Alixe, only look at _him_!--Look at his gold wristlets; listen to his simper, his lisp. Little girl--oh, little girl, what have you done to yourself?--for you have done nothing to me, child, that can match it in sheer atrocity!" Her colour was long in returning. "Philip," she said unsteadily, "I don't think I can stand this--" "Yes, you can." "I am too close to the wall. I--" "Talk to Scott Innis. Take him away from Rosamund Fane; that will tide you over. Or feed those fool fish; like this! Look how they rush and flap and spatter! That's amusing, isn't it--for people with the intellects of canaries. . . . Will you please try to say something? Mrs. T. West is exhibiting the restless symptoms of a hen turkey at sundown and we'll all go to roost in another minute. . . . Don't shiver that way!" "I c-can't control it; I will in a moment. . . . Give me a chance; talk to me, Phil." "Certainly. The season has been unusually gay and the opera most stupidly brilliant; stocks continue to fluctuate; another old woman was tossed and gored by a mad motor this morning. . . . More time, Alixe? . . . With pleasure; Mrs. Vendenning has bought a third-rate castle in Wales; a man was found dead with a copy of the _Tribune_ in his pocket--the verdict being in accordance with fact; the Panama Canal--" But it was over at last; a flurry of sweeping skirts; ranks of black and white in escort to the passage of the fluttering silken procession. "Good-bye," she said; "I am not staying for the dance." "Good-bye," he said pleasantly; "I wish you better fortune for the future. I'm sorry I was rough." He was not staying, either. A dull excitement possessed him, resembling suspense--as though he were awaiting a denouement; as though there was yet some crisis to come.