heir Kensington house, with the big hole in the carpet, the piles of
papers and books, the reading-lamp that would smoke, her work-basket,
the house-books, Arthur pulling contentedly at his pipe, the
fire crackling between them, his shabby coat, her shabby
dress--Bliss!--compared to this splendid scene, with the great Vandycks
looking down on the dinner-table, the crowd of guests and servants, the
costly food, the dresses, and the diamonds--with, in the distance, _her_
Arthur, divided, as it seemed, from her by a growing chasm, never
remembering to throw her a look or a smile, drinking in a tide of
flattery he would once have been the first to scorn, captured,
exhibited, befooled by an unscrupulous, egotistical woman, who would
drop him like a squeezed orange when he had ceased to amuse her. And the
worst of it was that the woman was not a mere pretender! She had a fine,
hard brain,--"as good as Arthur's--nearly--and he knows it. It is that
which attracts him--and excites him. I can mend his socks; I can listen
while he reads; and he used to like it when I praised. Now, what I say
will never matter to him any more; that was just sentiment and nonsense;
now, he only wants to know what _she_ says;--that's business! He writes
with her in his mind--and when he has finished something he sends it off
to her, straight. I may see it when all the world may--but she has the
first-fruits!"

And in poor Doris's troubled mind the whole scene--save the two central
figures, Lady Dunstable and Arthur--seemed to melt away. She was not the
first wife, by a long way, into whose quiet breast Lady Dunstable had
dropped these seeds of discord. She knew it well by report; but it was
hateful, both to wifely feeling and natural vanity, that _she_ should
now be the victim of the moment, and should know no more than her
predecessors how to defend herself. "Why can't I be cool and
cutting--pay her back when she is rude, and contradict her when she's
absurd? She _is_ absurd often. But I think of the right things to say
just five minutes too late. I have no nerve--that's the point!--only
_l'esprit d'escalier_ to perfection. And she has been trained to this
sort of campaigning from her babyhood. No good growling! I shall never
hold my own!"

Then, into this despairing mood there dropped suddenly a fragment of her
neighbour, the Colonel's, conversation--"Mrs. So-and-so? Impossible
woman! Oh, one doesn't mind seeing her graze occasionally at the other