's one she'll scarcely deny.
Some women would fret themselves to death over it--but I shouldn't
wonder if she sat down under it quite calmly without a word of
complaint." She frowned a little. "Why must _she_ always be superior to
others of her sex! How I detest that still solemn smile of hers and
those big baby-blue eyes! I think if Philip had married any other woman
than she--a woman more like the rest of us who'd have gone with her
time,--I could have forgiven him more easily. But to pick up a Norwegian
peasant and set her up as a sort of moral finger-post to society--and
then to go and compromise himself with Violet Vere--that's a kind of
thing I _can't_ stand! I'd rather be anything in the world than a
humbug!"

Many people desire to be something they are not, and her ladyship quite
unconsciously echoed this rather general sentiment. She was, without
knowing it, such an adept in society humbug, that she even humbugged
herself. She betrayed herself as she betrayed others, and told little
soothing lies to her own conscience as she told them to her friends.
There are plenty of women like her,--women of pleasant courtesy and
fashion, to whom truth is mere coarseness,--and with whom polite lying
passes for perfect breeding. She was not aware, as she was driven along
Park Lane to her own residence, that she carried with her on the box of
her brougham a private detective in the person of Briggs. Perched
stiffly on his seat, with arms tightly folded, this respectable retainer
was quite absorbed in meditation, so much so that he exchanged not a
word with his friend, the coachman, beside him. He had his own notions
of propriety,--he considered that his mistress had no business whatever
to call on an actress of Violet Vere's repute,--and he resolved that
whether he were reproved for over-officiousness or not, nothing should
prevent him from casually mentioning to Lord Winsleigh the object of her
ladyship's drive that morning.

"For," mused Briggs gravely, "a lady 'as responsibilities, and 'owever
she forgets 'erself, appearances 'as to be kep' up."

With the afternoon, the fog which had hung over the city all day,
deepened and darkened. Thelma had lunched with Mrs. Lorimer, and had
enjoyed much pleasant chat with that kindly, cheerful old lady. She had
confided to her, part of the story of Sir Francis Lennox's conduct,
carefully avoiding every mention of the circumstance which had given
rise to it,--namely, the discussion