o are not of my kind. I
shall never be able to endure that.'

'Of course you are speaking of Mr. Barfoot.'

'Yes,' he avowed sullenly. 'It was a very unfortunate thing that I
happened to come up just as he was in your company.'

'You are so very unreasonable,' exclaimed Monica tartly. 'What possible
harm is there in Mr. Barfoot, when he meets me by chance in a public
place, having a conversation with me? I wish I knew twenty such men.
Such conversation gives me a new interest in life. I have every reason
to think well of Mr. Barfoot.'

Widdowson was in anguish.

'And I,' he replied, in a voice shaken with angry feeling, 'feel that I
have every reason to dislike and suspect him. He is not an honest man;
his face tells me that. I know his life wouldn't bear inspection. You
can't possibly be as good a judge as I am in such a case. Contrast him
with Bevis. No, Bevis is a man one can trust; one talk with him
produces a lasting favourable impression.'

Monica, silent for a brief space, looked fixedly before her, her
features all but expressionless.

'Yet even with Mr. Bevis,' she said at length, 'you don't make friends.
That is the fault in you which causes all this trouble. You haven't a
sociable spirit. Your dislike of Mr. Barfoot only means that you don't
know him, and don't wish to. And you are completely wrong in your
judgment of him. I have every reason for being sure that you are wrong.'

'Of course you think so. In your ignorance of the world--'

'Which you think very proper in a woman,' she interposed caustically.

'Yes, I do! That kind of knowledge is harmful to a woman.'

'Then, please, how is she to judge her acquaintances?'

'A married woman must accept her husband's opinion, at all events about
men.' He plunged on into the ancient quagmire. 'A man may know with
impunity what is injurious if it enters a woman's mind.'

'I don't believe that. I can't and won't believe it.'

He made a gesture of despair.

'We differ hopelessly. It was all very well to discuss these things
when you could do so in a friendly spirit. Now you say whatever you
know will irritate me, and you say it on purpose to irritate me.'

'No; indeed I do not. But you are quite right that I find it hard to be
friendly with you. Most earnestly I wish to be your friend--your true
and faithful friend. But you won't let me.'

'Friend!' he cried scornfully. 'The woman who has become my wife ought
to be something more than a friend, I