the end achieve it as well as the commoner sort. He owes me a
good deal, and at one time it pleased me to imagine that he
was capable both of affection and gratitude. That is the
worst of being a woman; we pass from one illusion to another;
love is only the beginning; there are a dozen to come after.

"You will scold me for a bitter tongue. Well, my dear
Wilfrid, I am not gay here. There are too many women, too
many church services, and I see too much of my doctor. I pine
for London, and I don't see why I should have been driven out
of it by an _intrigante_.

"Write to me, my dear Wilfrid. I am not quite so bad as I
paint myself; say to yourself she has arthritis, she is
sixty-five, and her new companion reads aloud with a twang;
then you will only wonder at my moderation."

Sir Wilfrid returned the letter to his pocket. That day, at luncheon
with Lady Hubert, he had had the curiosity to question Susan Delafield,
Jacob's fair-haired sister, as to the reasons for her brother's quarrel
with Lady Henry.

It appeared that being now in receipt of what seemed to himself, at any
rate, a large salary as his cousin's agent, he had thought it his duty
to save up and repay the sums which Lady Henry had formerly spent upon
his education.

His letter enclosing the money had reached that lady during the first
week of her stay at Torquay. It was, no doubt, couched in terms less
cordial or more formal than would have been the case before Miss Le
Breton's expulsion. "Not that he defends her altogether," said Susan
Delafield, who was herself inclined to side with Lady Henry; "but as
Lady Henry has refused to see him since, it was not much good being
friendly, was it?"

Anyway, the letter and its enclosure had completed a breach already
begun. Lady Henry had taken furious offence; the check had been
insultingly returned, and had now gone to swell the finances of a
London hospital.

Sir Wilfrid was just reflecting that Jacob's honesty had better have
waited for a more propitious season, when, looking up, he saw the War
Minister beside him, in the act of searching for a newspaper.

"Released?" said Bury, with a smile.

"Yes, thank Heaven. Lackington is, I believe, still pounding at me in
the House of Lords. But that amuses him and doesn't hurt me."

"You'll carry your resolutions?"

"Oh, dear, yes, with no trouble at all," said the Minister, almost with
su