ly are. You don't go down even with
the Primrose League, and they simply worship at the shrine of the great
Ar-rar."

"Fool or not, I'd kick out Pierce as I kicked out Carey if I thought--"

"And suppose I wouldn't let you?"

Her voice had suddenly changed. There was in it the sharp sound which
had so overwhelmed Miss Filberte.

Lord Holme sat straight up and looked at his wife.

"Suppose--what?"

"Suppose I declined to let you behave ridiculously a second time."

"Ridiculously! I like that! Do you stick out that Carey didn't love
you?"

"Half London loves me. I'm one of the most attractive women in it.
That's why you married me, blessed boy."

"Carey's a violent ass. Red-headed men always are. There's a chap at
White's--"

"I know, I know. You told me about him when you forbade poor Mr. Carey
the house. But Robin's hair is black and he's the gentlest creature in
diplomacy."

"I wouldn't trust him a yard."

"Believe me, he doesn't wish you to. He's far too clever to desire the
impossible."

"Then he can stop desirin' you."

"Don't be insulting, Fritz. Remember that by birth you are a gentleman."

Lord Holme bit through his cigarette.

"Sometimes I wish you were an ugly woman," he muttered.

"And if I were?"

She leaned forward quite eagerly on the sofa and her whimsical,
spoilt-child manner dropped away from her.

"You ain't."

"Don't be silly. I know I'm not, of course. But if I were to become
one?"

"What?"

"Really, Fritz, there's no sort of continuity in your mental processes.
If I were to become an ugly woman, what would you feel about me then?"

"How the deuce could you become ugly?"

"Oh, in a hundred ways. I might have smallpox and be pitted for life,
or be scalded in the face as poor people's babies often are, or have
vitriol thrown over me as lots of women do in Paris, or any number of
things."

"What rot! Who'd throw vitriol over you, I should like to know?"

He lit a fresh cigarette with tender solicitude. Lady Holme began to
look irritated.

"Do use your imagination!" she cried.

"Haven't got one, thank God!" he returned philosophically.

"I insist upon your imagining me ugly. Do you hear, I insist upon it."

She laid one soft hand on his knee and squeezed his leg with all her
might.

"Now you're to imagine me ugly and just the same as I am now."

"You wouldn't be the same."

"Yes, I should. I should be the same woman, with the same heart and
feelings and desir