t as well that he is; because whatever Carli is
up to Reggie knows, and what Reggie knows Marion Grimston knows. If ever
you see her--"

"Oh, but I don't--not now."

"That's a pity. If you did, you could pump her."

"I'm afraid I'm not much good at that sort of thing."

"Well, I am, when I get a chance. I'm bound to find out, somehow; and
there are more ways of killing a cat than by giving it poison."

A few weeks later still Mrs. Wappinger informed Diane that Dorothea
Pruyn was not happy.

"The Thoroughgoods told the Louds," she explained, "and the Louds told
me. Her father thinks she has given in to him; but she hasn't--not an
inch. He keeps her like a jailer; and she acts like a convict--always
with an eye open for some way of escape. That man no more understands
women than he does making pie."

"I've always noticed that the really strong men rarely do. There's
almost invariably something petty about a man to whom a woman isn't a
puzzle and a mystery."

"If it comes to a puzzle and a mystery, I don't know where you'd find a
greater one than Derek Pruyn himself. After the way he's acted--and
treated people--"

Diane flushed, but kept her emotions sufficiently under control to be
able to follow her usual plan of straightforward speaking.

"If you mean me, Mrs. Wappinger, I ought to say that Mr. Pruyn has done
nothing for which I can blame him. He was placed in a situation with
which only a very subtle intelligence could have dealt, and I respect
him the more for not having had it. It's generally the man who is most
competent in his own domain who is most likely to blunder when he gets
into the woman's; and I, for one, would rather have him do it. I've had
to suffer because of it, and so has Dorothea; and yet that doesn't make
me like it less."

"No, I dare say not," Mrs. Wappinger responded, sympathetically. "Mr.
Wappinger himself was just such a man as that. He'd put through a deal
that would make Wall Street shiver; but he understood my woman's nature
just about as much as old Tiger there, wagging his tail on the grass,
follows the styles in bonnets. Only, I'll tell you what, Mrs. Eveleth:
it's for men like that that God created sensible, capable wives, like
you and me; and they ought to have 'em."

This theme admitting of little discussion, Diane did not pursue it, but
she went away from Waterwild with a deepened sense of Derek's need of
her, as well as of Dorothea's. She could so easily have helped t