was an impulse--an equivocal impulse--born doubtless
of the equivocal situation, and it ended badly.

'She will bring something of the spring out to you,' said Madeline--'the
spring in England. How many years is it since you have seen it? There
will be a breath of the cowslips about her, and in her eyes the soft wet
of the English sky. Oh, you will be very glad to see her.' The girl was
well aware of her insincerity, but only dimly of her cruelty. She was
drawn on by something stronger than her sense of honesty and humanity, a
determination to see, to know, that swept these things away.

Innes's hand tightened on the rickshaw, and he made at first no answer.
Then he said:

'She has been staying in town, you know.'

There was just a quiver of Madeline's eyelid; it said nothing of the
natural rapacity behind. This man's testimony was coming out in throes,
and yet--it must be said--again she probed.

'Then she will put you in touch again,' she cried; 'you will remember
when you see her all the vigour of great issues and the fascination of
great personalities. For a little while, anyway, after she comes, you
will be in a world--far away from here--where people talk and think and
live.'

He looked at her in wonder, not understanding, as indeed how could he?

'Why,' he said, 'you speak of what YOU have done'; and before the truth
of this she cast down her eyes and turned a hot, deep red, and had
nothing to say.

'No,' he said, 'my wife is not like that.'

He walked along in absorption, from which he roused himself with
resentment in his voice.

'I can not leave such a fabric of illusion in your mind. It irritates me
that it should be there--about anybody belonging to me. My wife is not
in the least what you imagine her. She has her virtues, but she is--like
the rest. I can not hope that you will take to her, and she won't
like you either--we never care about the same people. And we shall see
nothing of you--nothing. I can hardly believe that I am saying this of
my own wife, but--I wish that she had stayed in England.'

'Mrs. Mickie!' cried Madeline to a passing rickshaw, 'what are you
rushing on like that for? Just go quietly and peaceably along with us,
please, and tell us what Mrs. Vesey decided to do about her part in 'The
Outcast Pearl'. I'm dining out tonight--I must know.' And Mrs. Mickie
was kind enough to accompany them all the rest of the way.

Miss Anderson dined out, and preferred to suppose that she