its
life had it heard of such an affair as this of May Gaston's, Mrs. Baxter
dived into her treasure-chest and serenely produced the case of the
Nonconformist Minister's daughter and the Circus Proprietor. Set this
affair side by side with the Quisante business, and a complete sum in
double proportion at once made its appearance. The audacity of the man,
the headlong folly of the girl, the hopeless mixing of incompatibles were
common to the two cases; the issue of the earlier clearly indicated the
fate that must attend the later. Lady Richard could do nothing but gasp
out, "And what happened, Mrs. Baxter?"

Mrs. Baxter told her, punctuating the story with stitches on a June
petticoat.

"She ran away from him twice; but he brought her back, and, they said,
beat her well. At any rate she ended by settling down to her new life.
They had seven children, all brought up to the circus; only the other day
one was sent to prison for ill-treating the dancing bear. He's dead, but
she still keeps the circus under his name. Of course all her old friends
have dropped her; indeed I hear she drinks. Her father still preaches
once on Sundays."

It was easy to disentangle the relevant from the merely reminiscent; the
running away, the beating, the settling down, the complete absorption in
the new life (vividly indicated by the seven children and their habits),
stood out saliently. Add the attitude of old friends, and Lady Richard
could not deny the value of the parallel. She acknowledged it with a
long-drawn sigh.

"May Gaston must be mad," she observed. "You can imagine how Dick feels
about it!"

"And all the while her cousin in the Bank was quite ready to marry her
and give her a nice little home. He was Church and sang in the choir at
St. Dunstan's."

Without consciously appreciating the nicety of the parallel here, Lady
Richard began to think of Weston Marchmont.

"I suppose Mr. Marchmont'll take Fanny now," she said. "I don't know,
though; he won't like any sort of connection with Alexander Quisante. How
selfish people are! They never think of what their marriages mean to
their relations."

This observation expressed a large part of what was felt by society; add
friends to relations, and it summed up one side of the indictment against
May Gaston. Lady Attlebridge's helpless and bewildered woe was one
instance of its truth, Fanny's rage another; to look farther afield,
May's friends and acquaintances discovered great caus