"Manage her as best you may," said Anne. "But you know how she can be
now and then--perfectly annihilating to unfortunate strangers."

Hector's finely chiselled lips shut like a vise.

"We shall see," he said. "And who else have you got? None of the
Harrowfield-Devlyn crew, I hope--"

"Hector, how strange you are! I thought you and Lady Harrowfield were
the greatest friends, so of course I asked her. No one in London can
make a woman's success as she can."

"Or mar it so completely if she takes a dislike! Have you ever heard of
her doing a kindness to any one? I haven't!" he said, irritably.

Then he walked to the window and back quickly.

"I tell you I am sick of it all, Anne. Last night, whoever I spoke to
had something vile to impute or insinuate about every one they
mentioned; and Lady Harrowfield, with a record of her own worse than the
lowest, rode a high horse of virtue, and was more spiteful than all the
rest put together. I loathe them, the whole crew. What do they know of
anything good or pure or fine? Painted Jezebels, the lot of them!"

"Hector!" almost screamed Lady Anningford. "What has come over you, my
dear boy?"

"I will tell you," he said; and his voice, which had been full of
passion, now melted into a tone of deep tenderness. "I love a woman
whose pure goodness has taught me there are other possibilities in life
beyond the aims of these vile harpies of our world--a woman whose very
presence makes one long to be better and nobler, whose dear soul has
not room for anything but kind and loving thoughts of sweetness and
light. Oh, Anne, if I might have her for my own, and live away down at
Bracondale far from all this, I think--I think I, too, could learn what
heaven would mean on earth."

"Dear Hector!" said Anne, who was greatly moved. "Oh, I am so sorry for
you! But what is to be done? She is married to somebody else, and you
will only injure her and yourself if you see too much of her."

"I know," he said. "I realize it sometimes--this morning, for
instance--and then--and then--"

He did not add that the thought of Lord Wensleydown and the rest
swarming round Theodora drove him mad, deprived him of his power of
reasoning, and filled him with a wild desire to protect her, to be near
her, to keep her always for himself, always in his sight.

"Anne," he said, at last, "promise me you will go out of your way to be
kind to her. Don't let these other odious women put pin-points into her,
beca