eady to come back
to London, and no great harm will have been done."

"I wouldn't do that," said Mrs. MacAndrew. "I'd give him all
the rope he wants. He'll come back with his tail between his
legs and settle down again quite comfortably." Mrs. MacAndrew
looked at her sister coolly. "Perhaps you weren't very wise
with him sometimes. Men are queer creatures, and one has to
know how to manage them."

Mrs. MacAndrew shared the common opinion of her sex that a man
is always a brute to leave a woman who is attached to him, but
that a woman is much to blame if he does. <i Le coeur a ses
raisons que la raison ne connait pas.>

Mrs. Strickland looked slowly from one to another of us.

"He'll never come back," she said.

"Oh, my dear, remember what we've just heard. He's been used
to comfort and to having someone to look after him. How long
do you think it'll be before he gets tired of a scrubby room
in a scrubby hotel? Besides, he hasn't any money. He must
come back."

"As long as I thought he'd run away with some woman I thought
there was a chance. I don't believe that sort of thing ever answers.
He'd have got sick to death of her in three months.
But if he hasn't gone because he's in love, then it's finished."

"Oh, I think that's awfully subtle," said the Colonel,
putting into the word all the contempt he felt for a quality
so alien to the traditions of his calling. "Don't you believe it.
He'll come back, and, as Dorothy says, I dare say he'll be
none the worse for having had a bit of a fling."

"But I don't want him back," she said.

"Amy!"

It was anger that had seized Mrs. Strickland, and her pallor
was the pallor of a cold and sudden rage. She spoke quickly now,
with little gasps.

"I could have forgiven it if he'd fallen desperately in love
with someone and gone off with her. I should have thought
that natural. I shouldn't really have blamed him. I should
have thought he was led away. Men are so weak, and women are
so unscrupulous. But this is different. I hate him.
I'll never forgive him now."

Colonel MacAndrew and his wife began to talk to her together.
They were astonished. They told her she was mad. They could
not understand. Mrs. Strickland turned desperately to me.

"Don't <i you> see?" she cried.

"I'm not sure. Do you mean that you could have forgiven him
if he'd left you for a woman, but not if he's left you for an idea?
You think you're a match for the one, but agai