to come every day and confide in me. You have no idea how amusing it was.
He behaved shockingly, but I couldn't help feeling a little sorry for
him. They were both such determined women. Finally I went to him, and
told him how it was I knew so much about his affairs, and said I thought
he ought to try and make up his mind which of them he really did care
for. And what do you think he said? That he had always been in love with
me." She laughed. "How absurdly things happen, don't they?"

"Good Heavens!" said Riatt.

"But even at the worst, I'm generally out by noon, and get a walk. I'm
rather dependent on exercise, and then I lunch with some one or other--"

"Men or women?"

"Either or both. And then after lunch I drive with some one, or go to see
pictures or hear music, and then I like to be at home by tea time,
because that's, of course, the hour every one counts on finding you; and
then there's dressing and going out to dinner, and very often something
afterwards."

"Good Lord," said Riatt again, and after a moment he added: "And does
that life amuse you?"

"No, but it doesn't bore me as much as doing things that are more
trouble."

"What sort of things?"

"Oh, being on committees that you don't really take any interest in." She
rather enjoyed his amazement.

"Now tell me one thing more," he said. "What would you do if you had to
earn your living?"

The true answer was that she would marry Edward Hickson, but, though
heretofore she had been fairly candid, she thought on this point a
little dissembling was permissible. "I should starve, I suppose," she
returned gaily.

"And suppose you fell in love with a poor man?"

She grew grave at once. "Oh, that's a dreadful thing to happen to one,"
she said. "I've had two friends who did that." She almost shuddered. "One
actually married him."

"And what happened to her?"

Miss Fenimer shook her head. "I don't know. She's living in the suburbs
somewhere. I haven't seen her for ages."

"And the other?"

"She was more practical. She married him to a rich widow ten years older
than he was. That provided for him, you see, at least. But it turned out
worse than the other case."

"How?"

"Why, he fell in love with this other woman--"

"His wife, you mean?"

"Yes. Imagine it! Men are so fickle."

"Do you know that you really shock me?"

"It's better to appreciate the way things are."

"It isn't the way things are among decent normal human beings."

She s