g
books. I've never permitted myself, you may believe, the least
observation on her conduct, but I can't accept it as the last word
either of taste or of tact. When a woman with her prettiness lets her
husband stray away she deserves no small part of her fate. I don't wish
you to agree with me--on the contrary; but I call such a woman a pure
noodle. She must have bored him to death. What has passed between them
for many months needn't concern us; what provocation my sister has
had--monstrous, if you wish--what ennui my brother has suffered. It's
enough that a week ago, just after you had ostensibly gone to Brussels,
something happened to produce an explosion. She found a letter in his
pocket, a photograph, a trinket, que sais-je? At any rate there was a
grand scene. I didn't listen at the keyhole, and I don't know what was
said; but I've reason to believe that my poor brother was hauled over
the coals as I fancy none of his ancestors have ever been--even by angry
ladies who weren't their wives."

Longmore had leaned forward in silent attention with his elbows on his
knees, and now, impulsively, he dropped his face into his hands. "Ah
poor poor woman!"

"Voila!" said Madame Clairin. "You pity her."

"Pity her?" cried Longmore, looking up with ardent eyes and forgetting
the spirit of the story to which he had been treated in the miserable
facts. "Don't you?"

"A little. But I'm not acting sentimentally--I'm acting scientifically.
We've always been capable of ideas. I want to arrange things; to see
my brother free to do as he chooses; to see his wife contented. Do you
understand me?"

"Very well, I think," the young man said. "You're the most immoral
person I've lately had the privilege of conversing with."

Madame Clairin took it calmly. "Possibly. When was ever a great
peacemaker not immoral?"

"Ah no," Longmore protested. "You're too superficial to be a great
peacemaker. You don't begin to know anything about Madame de Mauves."

She inclined her head to one side while her fine eyes kept her
visitor in view; she mused a moment and then smiled as with a certain
compassionate patience. "It's not in my interest to contradict you."

"It would be in your interest to learn, madam" he resolutely returned,
"what honest men most admire in a woman--and to recognise it when you
see it."

She was wonderful--she waited a moment. "So you ARE in love!" she then
effectively brought out.

For a moment he thought of getting