e because Elizabeth was unkind?"

"Some day you also will change just as she has done. I will not wait
for that day. No, indeed! To be sure, I shall suffer. Father, mother,
everybody suffers in one way or another. I can bear as much as others
can."

"You are an absurd little thing. Come, darling! Come back with me! I
want to tell you a very particular secret."

"Do you think you can pet, or coax, or tell me tales like a cross
child? I am a woman, and I have been hurt in every place a woman can
be hurt by your sister. I will not go back with you."

"Very well, Denas. You will repent this temper, I can tell you, my
dear."

"No, I shall not repent it. I will go to my father and mother. I will
tell them how bad I have been and ask them to forgive me. I shall
never repent that, I know."

She drew her arm from his clasp and, without lifting her eyes to him,
went forward with a swift, purposeful step. He watched her a few
moments, and then with a dark countenance turned homeward. "This is
Elizabeth's doing," he muttered. "Elizabeth is too, too detestably
respectable for anything. I saw and felt her sugared patronage of
Denas through all her soft phrases; she treats me in the same way
sometimes. When women get a husband they are conceited enough, but
when they get a husband and money also they are--the devil only knows
what they are."

He entered Elizabeth's presence very sulkily. Robert was in London and
there was no reason why he should keep his temper in the background.
"There is Caroline's answer," he said, throwing a letter on the table,
"and I do wish, Elizabeth, you would send me pleasanter errands in the
future. Caroline kept me waiting until she returned from a lunch at
Colonel Prynne's. And then she hurried me away because there was to be
a grand dinner-party at the Pullens'."

"At the Pullens'? It is very strange Robert and I were not invited."

"I should say very strange indeed, seeing that Caroline is their
guest. But Lord and Lady Avonmere were to be present, and of course
they did not want any of us."

"Any of us? Pray, why not?"

"Father's bankruptcy is not forgotten. We were nobodies until you
married Robert Burrell, and even Robert's money is all trade money."

"You are purposely trying to say disagreeable things, Roland. What
fresh snub has Caroline been giving you?"

"Snubs are common to all. Big people are snubbed by lesser people, and
these by still smaller ones, and so _ad infinitum_. You