ke a geyser
of contempt and ridicule. Grimshaw's pallid face flushed. But he
lifted his hat and smiled into the host of faces as the cab jerked
forward.

He went at once to Broadenham. Years later, Waram told me about the
meeting between those two--the centaur and the milk-white doe! Dagmar
received him standing and she remained standing all during the
interview. She had put aside her mourning for a dress made of some
clear blue stuff, and Waram said that as she stood in the breakfast
room, with a sun-flooded window behind her, she was very lovely
indeed.

Grimshaw held out his hands, but she ignored them. Then Grimshaw
smiled and shrugged his shoulders and said: "I have made two
discoveries this past year: That conventionalized religion is the most
shocking evil of our day, and that you, my wife, are in love with
Doctor Waram."

Dagmar held her ground. There was in her eyes a look of inevitable
security. She was mistress of the house, proprietor of the land,
conscious of tradition, prerogative, position. The man she faced had
nothing except his tortured imagination. For the first time in her
life she was in a position to hurt him. So she looked away from him to
Waram and confirmed his discovery with a smile full of pride and
happiness.

"My dear fellow," Grimshaw shouted, clapping Waram on the back, "I'm
confoundedly pleased! We'll arrange a divorce for Dagmar. Good heaven,
she deserves a decent future. I'm not the sort for her. I hate the
things she cares most about. And now I'm done for in England. Just to
make it look conventional--nice, Victorian, _English_, you
understand--you and I can go off to the Continent together while
Dagmar's getting rid of me. There'll be no trouble about that. I'm
properly dished. Besides, I want freedom. A new life. Beauty, without
having to buck this confounded distrust of beauty. Sensation, without
being ashamed of sensation. I want to drop out of sight. Reform? No! I
am being honest."

So they went off together, as friendly as you please, to France. Waram
was still thinking of Dagmar; Grimshaw was thinking only of himself.
He swaggered up and down the Paris boulevards showing his tombstone
teeth and staring at the women. "The Europeans admire me," he said to
Waram. "May England go to the devil." He groaned. "I despise
respectability, my dear Waram. You and Dagmar are well rid of me. I
see I'm offending you here in Paris--you look nauseated most of the
time. Let's go on to Sw