lone she gave way to an access of furious despair; and, shut up in
her bedroom behind locked doors, was just a savage human being who had
been horribly wounded, and who was unable to take any revenge for the
wound. She would not take any revenge, because she was not the sort
of woman who could go quite into the gutter. And she knew even in her
writhings of despair that Rupert Louth would go scot free. She would
never try to punish him for what he had done to her: and he would never
know he had done it, unless one of the "old guard" told him.

It was when she thought of the "old guard" that Lady Sellingworth almost
crumbled, almost went to pieces. For she knew that whatever she did, or
left undone, she would never succeed in deceiving its members. She would
not have been deceived herself if circumstances had been changed, if
another woman had been in her situation and she had been an onlooker.
"They" would all know.

For a moment she thought of flight.

But this episode ended in the usual way; it ended in the usual effort of
the poor human being to safeguard the sacred things by deception. Lady
Sellingworth somehow--how do human beings achieve such efforts?--pulled
herself together and gave herself to pretence. She pretended to Louth
that she was his best friend and had never thought of being anything
else. She was the receptacle for the cascade of his confidences. She
swore to help him in any way she could. Even after she received
"the Crouch," once Willoughby and still Willoughby to the "nuts" who
frequented the stalls of the Alhambra. She received that tall and
voluptuous young woman, with her haughty face and her disdainful airs,
and she bore with her horrible proprietorship of Louth. And finally she
broke it to Lord Blyston at Rupert's earnest request.

That should have been her supreme effort. But it was not. There was no
rest in pretence. As soon as Lord Blyston knew, everyone knew, including
the "old guard." And then, of course, Lady Sellingworth's energies had
all to be called into full play.

It was no wonder if underneath the cleverness of her Greek she aged
rapidly, more rapidly than was natural in a woman of her years. For she
had piled effort on effort. She had been young for Rupert Louth until
she had been physically exhausted; and then she had been old for him
until she was mentally exhausted. The hardy Amazon had been forced
to change in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, into the calm and
middle