sunny bedroom, and found Asako packing
feverishly, and sobbing in spasms.

"My poor little darling," he said, lifting her in his arms, "whatever
is the matter?"

He laid her on the sofa, took off her hat, and loosened her dress,
until gradually she became coherent.

"He tried to kiss me," she sobbed.

"Who did?" her husband asked.

"The Vicomte de Brie."

"Damned little monkey," cried Geoffrey, "I'll break every miserable
bone in his pretence of a body."

"Oh, no, no," protested Asako, "let us go away from here at once. Let
us go to Switzerland, anywhere."

The serpent had got into the garden, but he had not been a very adroit
reptile. He had shown his fangs; and the woman had promptly bruised
his head and had given him an eye like an Impressionist sunset, which
for several days he had to hide from the ridicule of his friends.

But Asako too had been grievously injured in the innocence of her
heart; and it took all the snow winds of the Engadine to blow away
from her face the hot defilement of the man's breath. She clung
closely to her husband's protection. She, who had hitherto abandoned
herself to excessive amiability, barbed the walls of their violated
paradise with the broken glass of bare civility. Every man became
suspect, the German professors culling Alpine plants, the mountain
maniacs with their eyes fixed on peaks to conquer. She had no word
for any of them. Even the manlike womenfolk, who golfed and rowed and
clambered, were to her indignant eyes dangerous panders to the lusts
of men, disguised allies of _Madame Cythere_.

"Are they all bad?" she asked Geoffrey.

"No, little girl, I don't suppose so. They look too dismal to be bad."

Geoffrey was grateful for the turn of events which had delivered up
his wife again into his sole company. He had missed her society more
than he dared confess; for uxoriousness is a pitiful attitude. In
fact, it is Bad Form.

At this period he wanted her as a kind of mirror for his own mind and
for his own person. She saw to it that his clothes were spotless and
that his tie was straight. Of course, he always dressed for dinner
even when they dined in their room. She too would dress herself up in
her new finery for his eyes alone. She would listen to him laying down
the law on subjects which he would not dare broach were he talking
to any one else. She flattered him in that silent way which is so
soothing to a man of his character. Her mind seemed to absorb his