embraced it," said she in her ringing voice.

"I believe it's about the only thing you ever wanted to embrace."

"You need not say so," she returned.

"Then why, oh why, do you wear those awful clothes?"

"My clothes are suitable," said she.

"Suitable? My dear girl, they suggest a divorce-suit, Majendie _versus_
Majendie, if you like. You're a walking prosecution. Your face, with that
expression on it, is a decree _nisi_ with costs. You don't want to be a
libel on your husband, do you?"

"How can you say such things?"

"Well--look in the glass, dear, if you don't believe me."

She looked. The dress was certainly not becoming. She greeted the joyless
apparition with her thin, unwilling smile.

He put his arm around her and drew her to him. He loved her dearly, for
all her sadness and unsweetness.

"Poor Nancy," he said, "I _am_ a brute. Forgive me."

"I do forgive you."

The words seemed the refrain of her life's sad song.

And as he kissed her he said to himself, "That's all very well; but if I
only knew what I'm supposed to have done to her! Her friends must think
me a perfect monster."

And, indeed, there was more truth than Majendie was aware of in his
extravagant jests. His wife's face was so eloquent of misery that her
friends were not slow in drawing their conclusions. Thurston Square
prepared itself to rally round her. Mrs. Eliott was loyal in keeping what
she supposed to be Anne's secret, but when she found that the Gardners
also understood that young Mrs. Majendie wasn't very happy with her
husband, discussion became free in Thurston Square, though it went no
further.

"The kindest thing we can do is to give her a refuge sometimes from his
dreadful friends," said Mrs. Eliott. "I have to ask her here every time
they're there."

Mrs. Gardner declared that she also would ask her gladly. Miss Proctor
said that she would ask Mr. Majendie and Mr. Gorst, which would come to
the same thing for Anne, but that she would not have Anne without her
husband. Miss Proctor could be depended on to take a light view of any
situation, a view entirely her own.

So the Gardners, as well as the Eliotts, rallied round Mrs. Majendie, and
offered their house also as her refuge. And thus poor Anne, whose ideal
was an indestructible loyalty, contrived to build up the most undesirable
reputation for her husband in Thurston Square. Of this reputation she now
became aware, and it reacted on her own estimate of him. She