vise you to make the most of
your opportunity. I shall make things as pleasant for you as I can, while
I am with you, but, as you know, I am liable to leave you at any time,
now."

"Pray don't hurry away," she replied sweetly. "I shall miss you so when
you are gone."

He glared at her while she laughed mockingly.

"Where is everybody?" he asked. "The place is as lonely as a tomb."

"Louise is out riding with Jim."

"And what are you doing at home?" he demanded suspiciously.

"Me? Oh I remained to care for you--to keep you from being lonely."

"You lie. You are expecting some one."

She laughed.

"Who is it this time?" he persisted.

"Your insinuations are so unwarranted," she murmured.

"Whom are you expecting?"

"Dear me! how persistently you look for evil," she mocked. "You know
perfectly well that, thanks to my tact, I am considered quite the model
wife. You really should cultivate a more trusting disposition."

Another fit of coughing seized him, and while he suffered she again
watched him with that curious air of interest. When he could command his
voice, he gasped in a choking whisper, "You fiend! I know, and you know
that I know. Am I so innocent that Jack Hanover, and Charlie Rodgers, and
Black Whitman, and as many more of their kind, can make love to you under
my very nose without my knowing it? You take damned good care--posing as a
prude with your fad about immodest dress--that the world sees nothing; but
you have never troubled to hide it from me."

Deliberately, she arose and stood before him. "And why should I trouble to
hide anything from you?" she demanded. "Look at me"--she posed as if to
exhibit for his critical inspection the charm of her physical
beauty--"Look at me; am I to waste all _this_ upon you? You tell me that
you have had your money's worth--surely, the purchase price is mine to
spend as I will. Even suppose that I were as evil as your foul mind sees
me, what right have you to object? Are you so chaste that you dare cast a
stone at me? Am I to have no pleasure in this hell you have made for me
but the horrible pleasure of watching you in the hell you have made for
yourself? Be satisfied that the world does not see your shame--though
it's from no consideration of you, but wholly for myself, that I am
careful. As for my modesty--you know it is not a fad but a necessity."

"That is just it"--he retorted--"it is the way you make a fad of a
necessity! Forced to hide your shoulde