“What an idea!” The two ladies had been walking slowly as they talked;—now they came to a halt at their parting place before Mrs. Cromwell’s house, which was an important, even imposing, structure of the type called Georgian, and in handsome conventional solidity not unlike the lady who lived in it. Across the broad street was a newer house, one just finished, a pinkish stucco interpretation of Mediterranean gaiety, and so fresh of colour that it seemed rather a showpiece, not yet actually inhabited though glamoured with brocaded curtains and transplanted arbor vitæ into the theatrical semblance of a dwelling in use. Mrs. Dodge glanced across at it with an expression of disfavour. “I call the whole thing perfectly disgusting!” she said. II A LADY ACROSS THE STREET MRS. CROMWELL also looked at the new house; then she shook her head. “It’s painful, rather,” she said, and evidently referred to something more than the house itself. “Outright disgusting!” her friend insisted. “I suppose he’s there as much as ever?” “Oh, yes. Rather more.” “Well, I’ll say one thing,” Mrs. Dodge declared; “Amelia Battle won’t get any sympathy from me!” “Sympathy? My dear, you don’t suppose she dreams she needs _sympathy_! Doesn’t she show the rest of us every day how she pities us because we’re not married to Roderick Brooks Battle?” “Yes, and that’s what makes me so furious. But she _will_ need sympathy,” Mrs. Dodge persisted, with a dark glance at the new house across the street. “She will when she knows about that!” “But maybe she’ll never know.” “What!” Mrs. Dodge laughed scornfully. “My dear, when a woman builds a man into a god he’s going to assume the privileges of a god.” “And behave like the devil?” “Just that,” Mrs. Dodge returned, grimly. “Especially when his idolater has burnt up her youth on his altar and her friends begin to notice she’s getting a skimpy look. What chance has a skimpy-looking slave against a glittering widow rich enough to build a new house every time she wants to have tête-à-têtes with a godlike architect?” “But she’s only built one,” Mrs. Cromwell cried, protesting. “So far!” her pessimistic companion said; then laughed at her own extravagance, and became serious again. “I think Amelia ought to know.” “Oh, no!” “Yes, she ought,” Mrs. Dodge insisted. “In the first place, she ought to be saved from making herself so horribly ridiculous. Of course, she’s always been ridiculous; but the way she raves about him when _he’s_ raving about another woman—why, it’s _too_ ridiculous! In the second place, if she knew something about the Mrs. Sylvester affair now it might help her to bear a terrific jolt later.” “What terrific jolt, Lydia?” “If he leaves her,” Mrs. Dodge said, gravely. “If Mrs. Sylvester decides to make him a permanent fixture. Men do these things nowadays, you know.”