ave said it but for what you told me yourself."

"What did I tell you?"

"That Edith cared for him."

He remembered.

"If I did tell you that, it was because I thought you cared for Edie."

"I do care for her."

"You've rather a strange way of showing it. I wonder if you realise how
much she did care? What it must have meant to her when she got ill? What
it meant to him? Have you the remotest conception of the infernal
hardship of it?"

"I know it was hard."

"Forgive me; you don't know, or you wouldn't be so hard on both of them."

"It isn't I who am hard."

"Isn't it? When you're just proposing to stop Gorst's coming here?"

"It's not I that's stopping him. It's his own conduct. He is hard on
himself, and he is hard on her. There's nobody else to blame."

"Do you mean to say you think I'm actually going to tell him not to come
any more?"

"My dear, it's the least you can do for me after--"

"After what?"

"After everything."

"After letting you in for marrying me, you mean. And as I suppose poor
Edie was to blame for that, it's the least _she_ can do for you to give
him up. Is that it? Seeing him is about the only pleasure that's left to
her, but that doesn't come into it, does it?"

She was silent.

"Well, and what am I to think of you for all this?"

"I cannot _help_ what you think of me," said she with the stress of
despair.

"Well, I don't think anything, as it happens. But, if you were capable of
understanding in the least what you're trying to do, I should think you a
hard, obstinate, cruel woman. What I'm chiefly struck with is your
extreme simplicity. I suppose I mustn't be surprised at your wanting to
turn Gorst out; but how you could imagine for one moment that I would do
it--No, that's beyond me."

"I can only say I shall not receive him. If he comes into the house,
I shall go out of it."

"Well--" said Majendie judicially, as if she had certainly hit upon a
wise solution.

"If he dines here I must dine at the Eliotts'."

"Well--and you'll like that, won't you? And I shall like having Gorst,
and so will Edie, and Gorst will like seeing her, and everybody will be
pleased."

Overhead Mr. Gorst burst into a dance measure, so hilarious that it
seemed the very cry of his delight.

"As long as Edie goes on seeing him, he'll think it's all right."

Overhead Mr. Gorst's gay tune proclaimed that indeed he thought so. He
broke off suddenly, and began another and a better one, till