nse. I
know how the whole affair seems to me, and I tell you frankly that I can
see nothing from the point of view of honour to prevent Mannering
marrying any woman he chooses. I think it very possible that he may
readjust his whole point of view."

The woman looked around her, and outside, where her victoria was waiting.
At last she had attained to an environment such as she had all her life
desired. The very idea that at any moment it might be swept away sent a
cold shiver through her. Borrowdean had a trick of speaking convincingly.
And besides--

"Who is the woman?" she asked.

"I had been wondering," Borrowdean said, "whether it would not be better
to tell you, so that you might be on your guard. The woman is the Duchess
of Lenchester."

She stared at him.

"You're in earnest?"

"Absolutely!"

Her face hardened. Whatever other feelings she may have had for
Mannering, she had lived so long with the thought that he belonged to
her, at least as a wage-earning animal, a person whose province it
was to make her ways smooth so far as his means permitted, that the
thought of losing him stirred in her a dull, jealous anger.

"I'd stop it!" she declared. "I'd go and tell her everything."

"I am not sure," Borrowdean continued, smoothly, "that that would be the
best course. Supposing that you were to tell her the story just as you
told it to me. It is just possible that her point of view might be mine.
She might regard Lawrence Mannering as a quixotic person, and endeavour
to persuade him that your claim was scarcely so binding as he seems to
imagine. In any case, I do not think that your story would prevent her
marrying him."

"Then all I can say is that she is a woman with a very queer sense of
right and wrong," Mrs. Phillimore declared, angrily.

Borrowdean smiled.

"A woman," he said, "who is fond of a man is apt to have her judgment
a little warped. The Duchess is a woman of fine perceptions and sound
judgment. But she is attracted by Lawrence Mannering. She admires him.
He is the sort of person who appeals to her imagination. These feelings
might easily become, if they have not already developed into, something
else. And I tell you again that I do not believe your story would stop
her from marrying him."

She leaned a little towards him.

"What would?" she asked, earnestly.

He hesitated.

"Well," he said, "I think I could tell you that!"

She held up her hand.

"Stop, please," she said. "I wa