y. "And, I think,
George, we had better not detain Mrs. Stepney any longer."

Miss Bart, during this brief exchange of words, remained in admirable
erectness, slightly isolated from the embarrassed group about her. She
had paled a little under the shock of the insult, but the discomposure of
the surrounding faces was not reflected in her own. The faint disdain of
her smile seemed to lift her high above her antagonist's reach, and it
was not till she had given Mrs. Dorset the full measure of the distance
between them that she turned and extended her hand to her hostess.

"I am joining the Duchess tomorrow," she explained, "and it seemed easier
for me to remain on shore for the night."

She held firmly to Mrs. Bry's wavering eye while she gave this
explanation, but when it was over Selden saw her send a tentative glance
from one to another of the women's faces. She read their incredulity in
their averted looks, and in the mute wretchedness of the men behind them,
and for a miserable half-second he thought she quivered on the brink of
failure. Then, turning to him with an easy gesture, and the pale bravery
of her recovered smile--"Dear Mr. Selden," she said, "you promised to see
me to my cab."

Outside, the sky was gusty and overcast, and as Lily and Selden moved
toward the deserted gardens below the restaurant, spurts of warm rain
blew fitfully against their faces. The fiction of the cab had been
tacitly abandoned; they walked on in silence, her hand on his arm, till
the deeper shade of the gardens received them, and pausing beside a
bench, he said: "Sit down a moment."

She dropped to the seat without answering, but the electric lamp at the
bend of the path shed a gleam on the struggling misery of her face.
Selden sat down beside her, waiting for her to speak, fearful lest any
word he chose should touch too roughly on her wound, and kept also from
free utterance by the wretched doubt which had slowly renewed itself
within him. What had brought her to this pass? What weakness had placed
her so abominably at her enemy's mercy? And why should Bertha Dorset have
turned into an enemy at the very moment when she so obviously needed the
support of her sex? Even while his nerves raged at the subjection of
husbands to their wives, and at the cruelty of women to their kind,
reason obstinately harped on the proverbial relation between smoke and
fire. The memory of Mrs. Fisher's hints, and the corroboration of his own
impre