a very busy business girl and he objected. She went about to
theatres and parties and dinners and concerts with other men; and
Neville didn't like it. Penrhyn Cardemon met her at a theatrical supper
and asked her to be one of his guests on his big yacht, the _Mohave_,
fitted out for the Azores. There were twenty in the party, and she would
have gone had not Neville objected angrily.

It was not his objection but his irritation that confused her. She could
discover no reason for it.

"It can't be that you don't trust me," she said to him, "so it must be
that you're lonely without me, even when you go to spend two weeks with
your parents. I don't mind not going if you don't wish me to, Louis, and
I'll stay here in town while you visit your father and mother, but it
seems a little bit odd of you not to let me go when I can be of no
earthly use to you."

Her gentleness with him, and her sweet way of reasoning made him
ashamed.

"It's the crowd that's going, Valerie--Cardemon, Querida, Marianne
Valdez--where did you meet her, anyway?"

"In her dressing room at the Opera. She's perfectly sweet. Isn't she all
right?"

"She's Cardemon's mistress," he said, bluntly.

A painful colour flushed her face and neck; and at the same instant he
realised what he had said.

Neither spoke for a while; he went on with his painting; she, standing
once more for the full-length portrait, resumed her pose in silence.

After a while she heard his brushes clatter to the floor, saw him leave
his easel, was aware that he was coming toward her. And the next moment
he had dropped at her feet, kneeling there, one arm tightening around
her knees, his head pressed close.

Listlessly she looked down at him, dropped one slim hand on his
shoulder, considering him.

"The curious part of it is," she said, "that all the scorn in your voice
was for Marianne Valdez and none for Penrhyn Cardemon."

He said nothing.

"Such a queer, topsy-turvy world," she sighed, letting her hand wander
from his shoulder to his thick, short hair. She caressed his forehead
thoughtfully.

"I suppose some man will say that of me some day.... But that is a
little matter--compared to making life happy for you.... To be your
mistress could never make me unhappy."

"To be your husband--and to put an end to all these damnable doubts and
misgivings and cross-purposes would make me happy all my life!" he burst
out with a violence that startled her.

"Hush, Louis. We m