jewel of a maid--lied to me with every second breath.
There have been moments when I've wished I was the daughter of a poor
New England minister--living in a little white house under a couple of
elms and doing all the housework."

She had begun to speak slowly, with reserve and effort; but she went on
quickly and as if talk were at last a relief. "My marriage introduced me
to people and things which seemed to me at first very strange and then
very horrible, and then, to tell the truth, of very little importance.
At first I expended a great deal of sorrow and dismay and pity on it
all; but there soon came a time when I began to wonder if it were worth
one's tears. If I could tell you the eternal friendships I've seen
broken, the inconsolable woes consoled, the jealousies and vanities
scrambling to outdo each other, you'd agree with me that tempers
like yours and mine can understand neither such troubles nor such
compensations. A year ago, while I was in the country, a friend of mine
was in despair at the infidelity of her husband; she wrote me a most
dolorous letter, and on my return to Paris I went immediately to see
her. A week had elapsed, and as I had seen stranger things I thought
she might have recovered her spirits. Not at all; she was still in
despair--but at what? At the conduct, the abandoned, shameless conduct
of--well of a lady I'll call Madame de T. You'll imagine of course that
Madame de T. was the lady whom my friend's husband preferred to his
wife. Far from it; he had never seen her. Who then was Madame de T.?
Madame de T. was cruelly devoted to M. de V. And who was M. de V.? M.
de V. was--well, in two words again, my friend was cultivating two
jealousies at once. I hardly know what I said to her; something at any
rate that she found unpardonable, for she quite gave me up. Shortly
afterwards my husband proposed we should cease to live in Paris, and I
gladly assented, for I believe I had taken a turn of spirits that made
me a detestable companion. I should have preferred to go quite into the
country, into Auvergne, where my husband has a house. But to him Paris
in some degree is necessary, and Saint-Germain has been a conscious
compromise."

"A conscious compromise!" Longmore expressively repeated. "That's your
whole life."

"It's the life of many people," she made prompt answer--"of most people
of quiet tastes, and it's certainly better than acute distress. One's
at a loss theoretically to defend compr