It will be seen that Leah, being of the world, judged as the world, and yet with greater discernment. In one way she was right. It is generally your sinner who gobbles up the cakes and ale. But Lady Jim--no very ardent Bible student--misread texts, or rather, read her own material meaning into them. Therefore, although conversant with green bay-trees--did she not dwell in a grove of such?--her memory did not recall the axe that might be laid to the roots thereof. The Seventy-third Psalm might also have assisted her to a better understanding of undeserved worldly prosperity, had she done other than gabble it hastily, when it happened to come into the service. But the fetish which stood to her in place of the Living God did not encourage spiritual explorations, and Leah saw life as a comprehensible stretch of time, limited by birth or death. The hereafter--if any--she could not conceive, knowing only the present as the real, the actual, and the true. Therefore did she grudge Jim his undeserved coddlings. Had he lain on a bed of his own making, it would have been justice--strict justice; but that fools should prepare him a feather mattress and downy pillow seemed, and really was, intolerable. Thinking of the Duke's wasted and misplaced affection, Leah plucked the fruit of her Tree of Knowledge. "Good people need missionaries," said Lady Jim. However, as Jim and she had occupied separate rooms for many a long day, his featherbedism troubled her little. Also, Askew had been brought to heel by the promise of future bones. The plot was being rounded off in far Jamaica without her aid, and what with Sir Billy's winnings and a moderate cheque cajoled out of the Duke, she had enough to keep the wolf from the Curzon Street door. On the whole, things could not be improved, and it only remained to exercise patience. But of this virtue Leah possessed little, and did not care to expend what she had in twiddling her thumbs at home. Jim was away, so she could play--and did. A masked ball at Covent Garden amused her immensely; the plays condemned by Sir Billy found in her a lenient critic; and now that Pentland had paid off old bills, she ran up new ones with the zest of a woman who required nothing. Also, she went to Epsom, and pulled off a decent sum on a tip breathed into her ear by the racing baronet, whom she had snubbed into slangy admiration. To Hurlingham and Richmond she raced a split-new motor-car of the latest pattern, and exhibited her nerve and skill in the Park. Charity bazaars, Savoy dinners, bridge parties, Sunday river excursions, and such-like time-killers beheld her in varied and tasteful frocks, and she also dined with those friends upon whose cook she could rely. Altogether, she enjoyed the life of a busy idler, and had that remarkably agreeable time which magnificent health, comparative wealth, and a conscience of no importance would give to such a woman. But her head duly governed her frivolities, and she made no plans for the Cowes