with
no more notion than a boy how to deal with the inevitable daily
problems...the trivial stupid unimportant things that life is chiefly
made up of." "I'll deal with them for him," she rejoined.

"They'll be more than ordinarily difficult."

She shot a challenging glance at him. "You must have some special reason
for saying so."

"Only my clear perception of the facts."

"What facts do you mean?"

Darrow hesitated. "You must know better than I," he returned at length,
"that the way won't be made easy to you."

"Mrs. Leath, at any rate, has made it so."

"Madame de Chantelle will not."

"How do YOU know that?" she flung back.

He paused again, not sure how far it was prudent to reveal himself
in the confidence of the household. Then, to avoid involving Anna, he
answered: "Madame de Chantelle sent for me yesterday."

"Sent for you--to talk to you about me?" The colour rose to her forehead
and her eyes burned black under lowered brows. "By what right, I should
like to know? What have you to do with me, or with anything in the world
that concerns me?"

Darrow instantly perceived what dread suspicion again possessed her, and
the sense that it was not wholly unjustified caused him a passing pang
of shame. But it did not turn him from his purpose.

"I'm an old friend of Mrs. Leath's. It's not unnatural that Madame de
Chantelle should talk to me."

She dropped the screen on the table and stood up, turning on him the
same small mask of wrath and scorn which had glared at him, in Paris,
when he had confessed to his suppression of her letter. She walked away
a step or two and then came back.

"May I ask what Madame de Chantelle said to you?"

"She made it clear that she should not encourage the marriage."

"And what was her object in making that clear to YOU?"

Darrow hesitated. "I suppose she thought----"

"That she could persuade you to turn Mrs. Leath against me?"

He was silent, and she pressed him: "Was that it?" "That was it."

"But if you don't--if you keep your promise----"

"My promise?"

"To say nothing...nothing whatever..." Her strained look threw a haggard
light along the pause.

As she spoke, the whole odiousness of the scene rushed over him. "Of
course I shall say nothing...you know that..." He leaned to her and laid
his hand on hers. "You know I wouldn't for the world..."

She drew back and hid her face with a sob. Then she sank again into her
seat, stretched her arms across the tab