" she answered. Then she stepped back and daintily smoothed
out the gown she was wearing, smiling at him as she did that day three
years ago. She had put on this particular gown, remembering that Ian
Stafford had said charming things about that other blue gown just
before he bade her good-bye three years ago. That was why she wore blue
this night--to recall to Ian what it appeared he had forgotten. And
presently she would dine alone with Ian in her husband's house--and
with her husband's blessing. Pique and pride were in her heart, and she
meant Ian Stafford to remember. No man was adamantine; at least she had
never met one--not one, neither bishop nor octogenarian.

"Come, Ruddy, you must dress, or you'll be late," she continued,
lightly, touching his cheek with her fingers; "and you'll come down and
apologize, and put me right with Ian Stafford, won't you?"

"Certainly. I won't be five minutes. I'll--"

There was a tap at the door and a footman, entering, announced that Mr.
Stafford was in the drawing-room.

"Show him into my sitting-room," she said. "The drawing-room, indeed,"
she added to her husband--"it is so big, and I am so small. I feel
sometimes as though I wanted to live in a tiny, tiny house."

Her words brought a strange light to his eyes. Suddenly he caught her
arm.

"Jasmine," he said, hurriedly, "let us have a good talk over
things--over everything. I want to see if we can't get more out of life
than we do. There's something wrong. What is it? I don't know; but
perhaps we could find out if we put our heads together--eh?" There was
a strange, troubled longing in his look.

She nodded and smiled. "Certainly--to-night when you get back," she
said. "We'll open the machine and find what's wrong with it." She
laughed, and so did he.

As she went down the staircase she mused to herself and there was a
shadow in her eyes and over her face.

"Poor Ruddy! Poor Ruddy!" she said.

Once again before she entered the sitting-room, as she turned and
looked back, she said:

"Poor boy ... Yet he knew about a thousand years ago!" she added with a
nervous little laugh, and with an air of sprightly eagerness she
entered to Ian Stafford.

CHAPTER X

AN ARROW FINDS A BREAST

As he entered the new sphere of Jasmine's influence, charm, and
existence, Ian Stafford's mind became flooded by new impressions. He
was not easily moved by vastness or splendour. His ducal grandfather's
houses were palaces, the