e ponderous talent he possessed. The glory of it had hung
ponderously about Mr. Higginson last year; but this year, cut off
from politics, it was pitiable, the nonentity he had become.
Straker could read that in his lady's alienated eyes.

"Last year," he continued, "you seemed to find him interesting."

"You think things must be what they seem?"

Her tone accused him of insufficient metaphysical acumen.

"There is no necessity. Still, as I said, last year----"

"Could Mr. Higginson, in any year, be interesting?"

"Did you hope," Straker retorted, "to make him so by cultivating
him?"

"It's impossible to say what Mr. Higginson might become
under--centuries of cultivation. It would take centuries."

That was all very well, he said to himself. If he didn't say that
Miss Tarrant had pursued Mr. Higginson, he distinctly recalled the
grace with which she had allowed herself to be pursued. She _had_
cultivated him. And, having done it, having so flagrantly and
palpably and under Straker's own eyes gone in for him, how on earth
did she propose to get out of it now? There was, Straker said to
himself again, no getting out of it. As for centuries----

"Let us go back," he persisted, "to last year."

"Last year he had his uses. He was a good watch-dog."

"A _what_?"

"A watch-dog. He kept other people off."

For a moment he was disarmed by the sheer impudence of it. He smiled
a reminiscent smile.

"I should have thought his function was rather, wasn't it, to draw
them on?"

Her triumphing eyes showed him that he had given himself into her
hands. He should have been content with his reminiscent smile.
Wasn't he, her eyes inquired, for a distinguished barrister, just a
little bit too crude?

"You thought," she said, "he was a decoy-duck? Why, wouldn't you
have flown from your most adored if you'd seen her--with Mr.
Higginson?"

Thus deftly she wove her web and wound him into it. That was her
way. She would take your own words out of your mouth and work them
into the brilliant fabric, tangling you in your talk. And not only
did she tangle you in your talk, she confused you in your mental
processes.

"You didn't seriously suppose," she said, "that I could have had any
permanent use for him?"

Straker's smile paid tribute to her crowning cleverness. He didn't
know how much permanence she attached to matrimony, or to Mr.
Higginson, but he knew that she had considered him in that
preposterous relation. She fac