Of course this is all very annoying, especially as you
have such a lovely lot of new frocks and all the rest of it, but I dare
say they will come in later on. Not that it matters, seeing that you
have a husband who could stifle you in pretty frocks and never miss the
money. What a funny girl you are, Bee. You don't seem to appreciate your
good luck at all."

"You regard me as exceedingly lucky, then?" Beatrice asked quietly.

"My dear girl, lucky is not the word for it. Of course Stephen Richford
is not what I call an ideal husband, but with his amazing riches----"

"Which are nothing to me, Adela," Beatrice said. "I have discovered the
man to be a degraded and abandoned scoundrel. From the first I always
hated and detested him; I only consented to marry him for the sake of my
father. Adela, I am going to tell you the discovery that I made in my
father's bedroom this morning."

In a few words Beatrice told her story. But if she expected any outburst
of indignation from her listener, she was doomed to disappointment. The
little figure in the big arm chair didn't move--there was a smile of
contempt on her face.

"Good gracious, what a little thing to fuss about!" she cried. "It
seems to me that the man was paying you a compliment. If I had been in
your place I should have said nothing till I wanted to get the whip hand
of my husband. My dear child, you don't mean to say that you are going
to take the matter seriously!"

Beatrice felt the unbidden tears gathering in her eyes. She had been
sorely taxed and shaken to-day, and she was longing more than she knew
for a little sympathy. People had told her before that Lady Rashborough
had no heart, and she was beginning to believe it.

"Do you mean to say," Beatrice stammered, "do you really want me to
believe--that----"

"Of course I do, you goose. Money is everything. I married Rashborough
because it was the best thing that offered, and I did not want to
overstay my market. It was all a question of money. I would have married
a satyr if he had been rich enough. And you sit there telling me that
you are going to leave Stephen Richford."

"I shall never speak to him again. He and I have finished. I have no
money, no prospects, no anything. But I decline to return to Stephen
Richford."

"And so you are going to have a fine scandal," Lady Rashborough cried,
really angry at last. "You think you are going to hang about here posing
as a victim till something turns up. I d