n was the fourth--talking French almost
volubly. Palmer's accent was better than Susan's. She could
not--and felt she never could--get the accent of the
trans-Alleghany region out of her voice--and so long as that
remained she would not speak good French. "But don't let that
trouble you," said Clelie. "Your voice is your greatest
charm. It is so honest and so human. Of the Americans I have
met, I have liked only those with that same tone in their voices."

"But _I_ haven't that accent," said Freddie with raillery.

Madame Clelie laughed. "No--and I do not like you," retorted
she. "No one ever did. You do not wish to be liked. You
wish to be feared." Her lively brown eyes sparkled and the
big white teeth in her generous mouth glistened. "You wish to
be feared--and you _are_ feared, Monsieur Freddie."

"It takes a clever woman to know how to flatter with the
truth," said he. "Everybody always has been afraid of me--and
is--except, of course, my wife."

He was always talking of "my wife" now. The subject so
completely possessed his mind that he aired it unconsciously.
When she was not around he boasted of "my wife's" skill in the
art of dress, of "my wife's" taste, of "my wife's" shrewdness
in getting her money's worth. When she was there, he was
using the favorite phrase "my wife" this--"my wife" that--"my
wife" the other--until it so got on her nerves that she began
to wait for it and to wince whenever it came--never a wait of
many minutes. At first she thought he was doing this
deliberately either to annoy her or in pursuance of some
secret deep design. But she soon saw that he was not aware of
his inability to keep off the subject or of his obsession for
that phrase representing the thing he was intensely wishing
and willing--"chiefly," she thought, "because it is something
he cannot have." She was amazed at his display of such a
weakness. It gave her the chance to learn an important truth
about human nature--that self-indulgence soon destroys the
strongest nature--and she was witness to how rapidly an
inflexible will disintegrates if incessantly applied to an
impossibility. When a strong arrogant man, unbalanced by long
and successful self-indulgence, hurls himself at an obstruction,
either the obstruction yields or the man is destroyed.

One morning early in February, as she was descending from her
auto in front of the apartment house, she saw Brent in the
doorway. Never had he looked