“_He!_” Mrs. Dodge cried, and, in her scorn of Mrs. Leslie Braithwaite’s consort, dropped the embroidery into the basket and stared fiercely at Mr. Dodge; though it was really at an invisible Mr. Braithwaite that she directed this glare of hers. Apparently the unfortunate gentleman was one of those mere husbands whose existence seems either to amuse or to incense the wives of more dominant men: Mrs. Dodge certainly appeared to be incensed. “That miserable little pale shadow of a man!” she cried. “His name’s Leslie Braithwaite, but do you ever hear him spoken of except as ‘Mrs. Leslie Braithwaite’s husband’? He goes down to his little brass-rod works at eight o’clock every morning and gets money for her until six in the evening. Then he comes home and works on the account books of her uplifts until bedtime. If they go out, he stands around with her wrap over his arm and doesn’t speak unless you ask him a question. If you do, he begins his answer by saying, ‘My wife informs me’—How could that poor little creature know anything about anything?” “But _you_ know,” Mr. Dodge persisted. “You _do_ know, do you, Lydia?” “I know what I know,” she replied, and resumed her preoccupation with the embroidery. “But you couldn’t substantiate it by another witness, I take it,” he said, musingly. “That is, she feels safe against you because if you should ever decide to tell what you know, she would deny it and put you in the position of an accuser without proofs. It would simply be your word against hers, and she’d have the sympathy that goes to the party attacked and also the advantage of her wide reputation for lofty character and——” “Go on,” his wife interrupted. “Amuse yourself all you like; you’ll not find out another thing from me. Perhaps, if you should ever spend the morning at home digging around in our flower border along the hedge between her yard and ours, you might happen to hear her talking to her chauffeur, and in that case you might get to know something more. Otherwise, I don’t see how you ever will.” “Lydia!” “What?” “I’m not going to dig in any flower border! I’m not going to spy around any hedge just to——” “Neither did I!” she cried, indignantly. “Did you ever know me to do any spying?” “Certainly not. But you said——” “I said ‘If you _happen_ to.’ You don’t suppose I hid and listened deliberately? I was down on my hands and knees planting tulip bulbs, and the thick hedge was between us. That’s how it happened, and why, she never _dreamed_ anybody was near her. I didn’t even hear her come in that part of the yard until I heard her speaking right by me, on the other side of the hedge. Please don’t be quite so quick to think your wife would be willing to spy on another woman.” “I didn’t,” Mr. Dodge protested, hastily. “What did she say to the chauffeur?” “That,” his wife replied, severely, “is something you’ll never hear from me!” “From whom shall I hear it, then?”