him. He knew that she was worth a thousand Mrs.
Mervills, in spite of the latter's more vivid beauty and her quick wit.
For Mrs. Mervill was clever and could be extremely witty and amusing
when she liked. Her daring tongue stopped at very little, but it had
the gift of suggestion, which always saved her stories or repartees
from indelicacy or vulgarity.

Margaret, who had offered him nothing but friendship, stood out in his
mind as one of the women with whom it was a privilege for any man to be
on intimate terms. In his thoughts of her, Margaret was high and
strong and pure. When his mind dwelt on her, it soared; when it dwelt
on Mrs. Mervill, it grovelled. He did not wish to grovel; it was not
in his nature to do so; it took a woman such as Mrs. Mervill to bring
his lower self to the surface. He hated himself for even unconsciously
condemning her and he tried always to remember her charming moods, the
hours they had spent together when they first met on the gay
pleasure-boats on the Nile. Those were the days when the clever woman
hid from the man whom she had selected her baser nature. During those
guarded days she had been gay and amusing and apparently as innocent as
a schoolgirl. It was only after a considerable number of meetings and
many exchanges of thought had passed between them, that she began to
show her hand, or dared to convey to him in a hundred insinuating ways
and expressions the real nature of her feelings for him. Very
grudgingly and very reluctantly Michael had to admit to himself that
she had fallen in his estimation, that he would not be sorry if they
were never to meet again. Yet he was not strong enough to cut himself
off from her; her appeal to his pity stood in his way.

He had never met any woman before in the least like her. Her fearless
audacity had at first, just at first, somewhat amused, as it amazed
him. He had scarcely credited its being genuine. As she owed nothing
to her husband, or so she said, she saw no reason why she should not
live the life of a wealthy bachelor, who enjoyed it to the full. What
was sauce for the gander was sauce for the goose.

To gain any hold on Michael's affections, she had recognized that she
must go carefully. It was her role to let him think that her passion
for him was a totally new thing in her life, that she had at last found
the man who could help her to be the woman she longed to be. With her
knowledge of man-kind, she knew how to a