is like a book with one strong character moving
through its pages. The strong character in Lady Cantourne's book had
been Sir John Meredith. Her whole life seemed to have been spent on
the outskirts of his--watching it. And what she had seen had not been
conducive to her own happiness.

She knew that the note she had just received meant a great deal to Sir
John Meredith. It meant that Jack had come home with the full intention
of fulfilling his engagement to Millicent Chyne. At first she had rather
resented Sir John's outspoken objection to her niece as his son's wife.
But during the last months she had gradually come round to his way of
thinking; not, perhaps, for the first time in her life. She had watched
Millicent. She had studied her own niece dispassionately, as much
from Sir John Meredith's point of view as was possible under the
circumstances. And she had made several discoveries. The first of
these had been precisely that discovery which one would expect from a
woman--namely, the state of Millicent's own feelings.

Lady Cantourne had known for the last twelve months--almost as long
as Sir John Meredith had known--that Millicent loved Jack. Upon this
knowledge came the humiliation--the degradation--of one flirtation after
another; and not even after, but interlaced. Guy Oscard in particular,
and others in a minor degree, had passed that way. It was a shameless
record of that which might have been good in a man prostituted and
trampled under foot by the vanity of a woman. Lady Cantourne was of the
world worldly; and because of that, because the finest material has a
seamy side, and the highest walks in life have the hardiest weeds, she
knew what love should be. Here was a love--it may be modern, advanced,
chic, fin-de-siecle, up-to-date, or anything the coming generation may
choose to call it--but it was eminently cheap and ephemeral because it
could not make a little sacrifice of vanity. For the sake of the man she
loved--mark that!--not only the man to whom she was engaged, but whom
she loved--Millicent Chyne could not forbear pandering to her own vanity
by the sacrifice of her own modesty and purity of thought. There was the
sting for Lady Cantourne.

She was tolerant and eminently wise, this old lady who had made one
huge mistake long ago; and she knew that the danger, the harm, the
low vulgarity lay in the little fact that Millicent Chyne loved Jack
Meredith, according to her lights.

While she still sa