"What, you can't see the connection?" he said slowly. "You can sew over
your dress about fifty thousand pounds' worth of diamonds, and yet
you don't see the connection between the wearing of that dress and the
development of a gold mine by your husband?"

"I think I see it now--something of a connection. But I don't want any
more diamonds; I don't care if you take all that are sewed about the
dress and throw them into the river. That's how I feel this morning."

"I heard some time ago of a woman who had something of your mood upon
her one day. She had some excellent diamonds, and in one of her moods,
she flung them into the river. She was a wife and she had a lover who
disappointed her. The story reads very smoothly in verse."

She laughed.

"I have no lover," she said--was it mournfully? "I have a husband, it is
true; but he is not exactly of the type of King Arthur--nor Sir Galahad,
for that matter. I hope you found Paris as enjoyable as ever?"

"Quite. I never saw at Paris a more enrapturing toilet than yours of
last night. You are, I know, the handsomest woman of my acquaintance,
and you looked handsomer than I had ever before seen you in that
costume. I wonder why you put it on."

"Didn't someone--was it Phyllis?--suggest that it was an act of
inspiration; that I had a secret, mysterious prompting to put it on to
achieve the object which--well, which I did achieve."

"Object? What object?"

"To make my husband fall in love with me again."

"Ah! In love there is no again. I wonder where a telegram would find
Herbert."

"Don't worry yourself about him. Let him enjoy his holiday."

"Do you fancy he is enjoying himself with Earlscourt and his boon
companions? They'll be playing poker from morning till night--certainly
from night till morning."

"Why should he go on the cruise if he was not certain to enjoy himself?"

"Ah, that question is too much for me. Think over it yourself and let me
know if you come to a solution, my dear."

He rose and left the room before she could make any answer--before
she could make an attempt to find out in what direction his thoughts
regarding the departure of Herbert Courtland were moving.

She wondered if he had any suspicion in regard to Herbert and herself.
He was not a man given to suspicion, or at any rate, given to allowing
whatever suspicion he may have felt, to be apparent. He had allowed her
to drive and to ride with Herbert Courtland during the four months th