M THE PAST

She swept into the room, humming a light opera tune, bringing with her
the usual flood of perfumes, suggestion of cosmetics, a vivid apparition
of the artificial. Her skirts rustled aggressively, her voice was just
one degree too loud. Mannering rose to his feet a little wearily.

She looked at him with raised eyebrows.

"Heavens!" she exclaimed. "What have you been doing with yourself,
Lawrence? You look like a ghost!"

"I am quite well," he answered, calmly.

"Then you don't look it," she answered, bluntly. "Where have you been for
the last few weeks?"

"Up in the North," he answered. "It was very hot, and I had a great deal
to do. I suppose I am suffering, like the rest of us, from a little
overwork."

She spread herself out in a chair opposite to him.

"Don't stand," she said; "you fidget me. I have something to say to you."

"So I gathered from your note," he remarked.

"You haven't hurried."

"I only got back to London last night," he answered. "I could scarcely
come sooner, could I?"

"I suppose not," she admitted.

Then for a moment or two she was silent. She was watching him a little
curiously.

"Is this true?" she asked, "this rumour?"

"Won't you be a little more explicit?" he begged.

"They say that you are going to marry the Duchess of Lenchester!"

"It is true," he answered.

She leaned forward. Her clasped hands rested upon her knee. She seemed to
be examining the tip of her patent shoe. Suddenly she looked up at him.

"You ought to have come and told me yourself!" she said.

"I had no opportunity," he reminded her. "I left London the morning
after--it happened--and I returned last night."

"Political business?" she asked.

"Entirely."

"Lawrence," she said, "I don't like it."

"Why not?" he asked. "Has mine been such a successful life, do you think,
that you need grudge me a little happiness towards its close?"

"Bosh!" she answered. "You are only forty-six. You are a young man
still."

"I had forgotten my years," he declared. "I only know that I am tired."

"You look it," she remarked. "I must say that there is very little of the
triumphant suitor about you. You work too hard, Lawrence."

"If I do," he asked, with a note of fierceness in his tone, "whose fault
is it? I was almost happy at Blakely. I had almost learned to forget. It
was you who dragged me out again. You were not satisfied with half of my
income; you were always in debt, always wanting mor