h him to
dine.

The brilliant prodigal approached her with a little embarrassed youthful
air of humility and charm; the air almost of taking her into his
confidence over something unfortunate and absurd. He had evidently
counted on the ten minutes before dinner when he would be left alone with
her. He selected a chair opposite to her, leaning forward in it at ease,
his nervousness visible only in the flushed hands clasped loosely on his
knees, his eyes turned upon his hostess with a look of almost infantile
candour. It was as if he mutely implored her to forget yesterday's
encounter, and on no account to mention in what compromising company he
had been seen. His engaging smile seemed to take for granted that she was
a lady of pity and understanding, who would never have the heart to give
a poor prodigal away. His eyes intimated that Mrs. Majendie knew what it
amounted to, that awful prodigality of his.

But Mrs. Majendie had no illusions concerning sinners with engaging
smiles and beautiful manners. And with every tick of the clock he
deepened the impression of his insolence and levity. His very charm
and the flush and brilliance that were part of it went to swell the
prodigal's account. The instinct that had wakened in her knew them,
the lights and colours, the heralding banners and vivid signs, all the
paraphernalia of triumphant sin. She turned upon her guest the cold eyes
of a condign destiny.

By the time dinner was served it had dawned on Gorst that he was looking
in Mrs. Majendie for something that was not there. He might even have had
some inkling of her resolution; he sat at his friend's table so
consciously on sufferance, with an oppressed, extinguished air, eating
his dinner as if it choked him, like the last sad meal in a beloved
house.

Majendie, too, felt himself drawn in and folded in the gloom cast by his
wife's protesting presence. The shadow of it wrapped them even after Anne
had left the dining-room, as though her indignant spirit had remained
behind to preserve her protest. Gorst had changed his oppression for a
nervous restlessness intolerable to Majendie.

"My dear fellow," he said, "what is the matter with you?"

"How should I know?" said Gorst with a spurt of ill-temper. "I'm not a
nerve specialist."

Majendie looked at him attentively. "I say, _you_ mustn't go in for
nerves, you know; you can't afford it."

"My dear Walter, I can't afford anything, if it comes to that." He paused
with