er all, capable men should
keep such wives in order. If Lord Dunstable had not been scandalously
weak, Lady Dunstable would not have become a terror to her sex.

As for Uncle Charles, he had simply declined all responsibility in the
matter. He had never seen the Dunstables, wouldn't know them from Adam,
and had no concern whatever in what happened to their son. The situation
merely excited in him one man's natural amusement at the folly of
another. The boy was more than of age. Really he and his mother must
look after themselves. To meddle with the young man's love affairs,
simply because he happened to visit your studio in the company of a
lady, would be outrageous. So the painter laughed, shook his head, and
went back to his picture. Then Miss Wigram, looking despondently from
the silent Doris to the artist at work, had said with sudden energy, "I
must find out about her! I'm--I'm sure she's a horrid woman! Can you
tell me, sir"--she addressed Bentley--"the name of the gentleman who was
painting her before she came here?"

Bentley had hummed and hawed a little, twisting his red moustache, and
finally had given the name and address; whereupon Miss Wigram had
gathered up her papers, some of which had drifted to the floor between
her table and Doris's easel, and had taken an immediate departure, a
couple of hours before her usual time, throwing, as she left the
studio, a wistful and rather puzzled look at Mrs. Meadows.

Doris congratulated herself that she had kept her own counsel on the
subject of the Dunstables, both with Uncle Charles and Miss Wigram.
Neither of them had guessed that she had any personal acquaintance with
them. She tried now to put the matter out of her thoughts. Jane brought
in a tray for her mistress, and Doris supped meagrely in Arthur's
deserted study, thinking, as the sunset light came in across the dusty
street, of that flame and splendour which such weather must be kindling
on the moors, of the blue and purple distances, the glens of rocky
mountains hung in air, "the gleam, the shadow, and the peace supreme"!
She remembered how on their September honeymoon they had wandered in
Ross-shire, how the whole land was dyed crimson by the heather, and how
impossible it was to persuade Arthur to walk discreetly rather than,
like any cockney tripper, with his arm round his sweetheart. Scotland
had not been far behind the Garden of Eden under those circumstances.
But Arthur was now pursuing the higher,