, "What does it all come to, after all? We must
take things as they are; we mustn't be quixotic, we mustn't quarrel with
our bread-and-butter."

Dick looked at her with evident surprise, even with dismay.

"You think it all right?" he asked.

"It's not for me to say. Am I to sit in judgment on my husband? Anyhow
people do just the same thing every day. You know that as well as I do,
Dick." Just on the last words her voice grew softer; he might have caught
a hint of entreaty, had not his mind been fixed on his own wrongs and the
betrayal of his favourite cause. "I'm assuming that what you say is
true," she added, more coldly again.

When Dick left her, it was to go home to his wife and tell her, and Mrs.
Gellatly whom he found with her, that he did not understand what had come
over May Gaston--May Quisante, he corrected himself. Not understanding,
he proved naturally quite unable to explain. Lady Richard was more equal
to the occasion.

"That man's simply got hold of her," she said. "She'll think black's
white if he says it is. Still she must see that he's treating you
shamefully."

"She didn't seem to see it." moaned Dick mournfully. Then he laughed
rather bitterly and added, "I tell you what, though. I think that old
aunt of his has taken his measure pretty well."

The innate nobility which underlay Lady Richard's nature showed up
splendidly at this moment; she sympathised heartily with Dick, and
forbore to remind him of what she had said from the beginning, contenting
herself with remarking that for her part she never had considered and did
not now consider Mr. Quisante even particularly clever.

"He's as clever as the deuce," said Dick. That conviction, at least, he
need not surrender.

"I suppose," ventured Mrs. Gellatly, "that's how he convinces Lady May
that he's always right."

Dick looked at her with a touch of covert contempt; clever people could
convince the intellect, but there were instincts of honour, of loyalty,
and of fidelity which no arguments should be able to blunt or to turn.
Here was the thing which, vaguely felt, had so puzzled him in regard to
May Quisante; he had not doubted that she would see the thing as he had
seen it--as Quisante had professed himself unable to see it.

That evening Quisante brought home to dinner the gentleman whom Dick
Benyon called old Foster the maltster, and who had been Mayor of Henstead
three several times. He was a tall, stout, white-haired old man with a