of the proud sails of her
tragic adventure. But Anne herself was a sufficiently pathetic figure as
she appeared under his umbrella, descending from the Eliotts' doorstep,
with delicate slippered feet, gathering her skirts high from the bounding
rain, and carrying in her hands the boots she had not waited to put on.

Majendie uttered the little tender moan with which he was used to greet a
pathetic spectacle.

"He sounds," said Anne to herself, "as if he were sorry."

He looked it, too; he seemed the very spirit of contrition, as he sat in
the cab, with Anne's boots on his knees, guarding them with a caressing
hand. But she detected an impenitent brilliance in his eye as he stood
in the lamplight and helped her off with the mackintosh which dripped
with its passage from the cab to their doorstep.

"I think my feet are wet," said she.

"There's a splendid fire in the study," said he.

He drew up a chair, and made her sit in it, and took off her shoes and
stockings, and dried them at the fire. He held her cold feet in his hands
to warm them. Then he stooped down and laid his face against them and
kissed them. And she heard again his low, tender moan, and took it for
a cry of contrition. He rose from his knees and laid his hand on her
shoulder. She looked up, prepared to receive his chivalrous submission,
to gather into her bosom the full harvest of her protest, and then
magnanimously forgive.

It was not surrender, certainly not surrender, that she saw in the
downward gaze that had drawn her to him. His eyes were dancing, dancing
gaily, to some irresistible measure in his head.

"It was worth while, wasn't it?" said he.

"What was worth while?"

"Getting your feet wet, for the pleasure of not dining with Gorst?"

There were moments, Anne might have owned, when he did not fail in
sympathy and comprehension. Had she been capable of self-criticism, she
would have found that her attitude of protest was a moral luxury, and
that moral luxuries were a necessity to natures such as hers. But Anne
had a secret, cherishing eye on martyrdom, and it was intolerable to her
to be reminded in this way that, after all, she was only a spiritual
voluptuary.

Still more intolerable was the large indulgence of her husband's manner.
He seemed positively to pander to her curious passion, while preserving
an attitude of superior purity. He multiplied her opportunities. A week
had hardly passed before Mr. Gorst dined in Prior Street