ed his free individualism
like a glimpse of some dark feudal survival.

"But you are absolutely certain of your divorce! I've consulted--of
course without mentioning names--"

She interrupted him, with a melancholy smile: "Ah, so have I. The
divorce would be easy enough to get, if they ever let it come into
the courts."

"How on earth can they prevent that?"

"I don't know; my never knowing how they will do things is one of
the secrets of their power."

"Their power? What power?" he broke in with irrepressible contempt.
"Who are these bogeys whose machinations are going to arrest the
course of justice in a--comparatively--civilized country? You've
told me yourself that Monsieur de Malrive is the least likely to
give you trouble; and the others are his uncle the abbe, his mother
and sister. That kind of a syndicate doesn't scare me much. A priest
and two women _contra mundum!_"

She shook her head. "Not _contra mundum_, but with it, their whole
world is behind them. It's that mysterious solidarity that you can't
understand. One doesn't know how far they may reach, or in how many
directions. I have never known. They have always cropped up where I
least expected them."

Before this persistency of negation Durham's buoyancy began to flag,
but his determination grew the more fixed.

"Well, then, supposing them to possess these supernatural powers; do
you think it's to people of that kind that I'll ever consent to give
you up?"

She raised a half-smiling glance of protest. "Oh, they're not
wantonly wicked. They'll leave me alone as long as--"

"As I do?" he interrupted. "Do you want me to leave you alone? Was
that what you brought me here to tell me?"

The directness of the challenge seemed to gather up the scattered
strands of her hesitation, and lifting her head she turned on him a
look in which, but for its underlying shadow, he might have
recovered the full free beam of Fanny Frisbee's gaze.

"I don't know why I brought you here," she said gently, "except from
the wish to prolong a little the illusion of being once more an
American among Americans. Just now, sitting there with your mother
and Katy and Nannie, the difficulties seemed to vanish; the problems
grew as trivial to me as they are to you. And I wanted them to
remain so a little longer; I wanted to put off going back to them.
But it was of no use--they were waiting for me here. They are over
there now in that house across the river." She indicated