anstatecraft.

"And so," she said, "you've come, as they all come,--to join us."

"_Well_," said Lady Harman in a tone that made Agatha turn eyes of
surprise upon her.

"Of course," continued Lady Harman, "I suppose--I shall join you; but as
a matter of fact you see, what I've done to-day has been to come right
away.... You see I am still in my garden tweeds.... There it was down
there, a sort of stale mate...."

Agatha sat up on her heels.

"But my dear!" she said, "you don't mean you've run away?"

"Yes,--I've run away."

"But--run away!"

"I sold a ring and got some money and here I am!"

"But--what are you going to do?"

"I don't know. I thought you perhaps--might advise."

"But--a man like your husband! He'll pursue you!"

"If he knows where I am, he will," said Lady Harman.

"He'll make a scandal. My dear! are you wise? Tell me, tell me exactly,
_why_ have you run away? I didn't understand at all--that you had run
away."

"Because," began Lady Harman and flushed hotly. "It was impossible," she
said.

Miss Alimony regarded her deeply. "I wonder," she said.

"I feel," said Lady Harman, "if I stayed, if I gave in----I mean
after--after I had once--rebelled. Then I should just be--a wife--ruled,
ordered----"

"It wasn't your place to give in," said Miss Alimony and added one of
those parliament touches that creep more and more into feminine
phraseology; "I agree to that--_nemine contradicente_. But--I
_wonder_...."

She began a second cigarette and thought in profile again.

"I think, perhaps, I haven't explained, clearly, how things are," said
Lady Harman, and commenced a rather more explicit statement of her case.
She felt she had not conveyed and she wanted to convey to Miss Alimony
that her rebellion was not simply a desire for personal freedom and
autonomy, that she desired these things because she was becoming more
and more aware of large affairs outside her home life in which she ought
to be not simply interested but concerned, that she had been not merely
watching the workings of the business that made her wealthy, but reading
books about socialism, about social welfare that had stirred her
profoundly.... "But he won't even allow me to know of such things," she
said....

Miss Alimony listened a little abstractedly.

Suddenly she interrupted. "Tell me," she said, "one thing.... I
confess," she explained, "I've no business to ask. But if I'm to
advise----If my advice is to be worth a