kle-headed ass, only fit to herd with savages. He would listen, with
childlike envy, to Adrian, glib of tongue, exchanging with Doria the
shibboleths of the Higher Life. He had been considerably impressed by
Adrian as the author of a successful novel; but Adrian as a co-treader
of the stars with Doria, appeared to him in the light of an immortal.

Adrian and I, when alone, laughed over old Jaff, as we had laughed over
him for goodness knows how many years. I, who had guessed (with
Barbara's aid) the incidence of the thunderbolt, found in his humility
something pathetic which was lost to Adrian. The latter only saw the
blustering, woman-scorning hulk of thews and sinews, at the mercy of
anything in petticoats, from Susan upward. I disagreed. He was not at
the mercy of Liosha.

"You burrowing mole," cried Adrian one morning in the library, Jaffery
having gone off to golf, "can't you see that he goes about in mortal
terror of her?"

"No such thing!" I retorted hotly. "He has regarded her as an abominable
nuisance--a millstone round his neck--a responsibility--"

"A huntress of men," he interrupted. "Especially an all too probable
huntress of Jaffery Chayne. With Susan and Barbara and Doria he knows
he's safe--spared the worst--so he yields and they pick him up--look at
him and stand him on his head and do whatever they darn well like to
him; but with Liosha he knows he isn't safe. You see," Adrian continued,
after having lit a cigarette, "Jaffery's an honourable old chap, in his
way. With Liosha, his friend Prescott's widow, it would be a question of
marriage or nothing."

"You're talking rubbish," said I. "Jaffery would just as soon think of
marrying the Statue of Liberty in New York Harbour."

"That's what I'm telling you," said Adrian. "He's in a mortal funk lest
his animated Statue of Liberty should descend from her pedestal and with
resistless hands take him away and marry him."

"For one who has been hailed as the acutest psychologist of the day,"
said I, "you seem to have very limited powers of observation."

For some unaccountable reason Adrian's pale face flushed scarlet. He
broke out vexedly:

"I don't see what my imaginative work has got to do with the
trivialities of ordinary life. As a matter of fact," he added, after a
pause, "the psychology in a novel is all imagination, and it's the same
imaginative faculty that has been amusing itself with Jaffery and this
unqualifiable lady."

"All right, my d