e weight to the dictum as he threw himself
forward in his chair.

"Relative truth!" laughed May. "Like No. 77?"

"You must ask Mr. Quisante about that."

"Oh, no, I won't. I'll listen to his speeches about it." She grew grave
as she went on. "I've only asked him about one thing all through the
election. I had to ask him about that."

"Ah!" murmured Foster, cautiously, vaguely, safely.

"This wretched story about Sir Winterton, you know. And I got into
terrible trouble by my question." She laughed a little. "He doesn't as a
rule scold me, you know, but he really did. I was very much surprised.
Fancy boring you with this! Well, I asked him if he'd had anything to do
with reviving the story. I asked him right straight out. Did you think I
was like that, Mr. Foster?"

"Pretty well, pretty well," said old Foster; he was smiling, but he was
watching her again.

"Was it insulting? Well, you see----" She stopped abruptly; Foster was
not, after all, Aunt Maria, and she could not tell him how it was that
she might ask her husband questions that sounded insulting. "Anyhow he
was very much offended."

Foster still nursed his foot, and now he shifted a little in his chair.

"He gave me his word directly, but told me he was very much hurt at my
asking him." She smiled again. "There's a confession of a conjugal
quarrel for you, Mr. Foster. Don't talk about it, or Mr. Smiley will
have a caricature of us throwing the furniture at one another. I've been
very humble ever since, I assure you."

Mr. Foster chuckled. May imagined that his fancy was touched by her
suggestion of the caricature; in fact he was picturing Alexander
Quisante's indignant disclaimer.

"Don't tell him I said anything to you about it," she added.

"You may be sure I won't," he promised.

It would not have been out of harmony with Mr. Foster's general
theological position to consider the sudden and serious development of
his gout as a direct judgment on him for a diplomacy that perhaps
overstepped legitimate limits, and in another man's case he might have
adopted such a view with considerable complacency. When, however, he was
laid up and placed _hors du combat_ in the last three critical days, he
needed all his faith to reconcile him to one of the most unfathomable
instances of the workings of Providence. His grumbles were loud and long,
and the directions which he sent from his sick bed were tinged with
irritability. For at last the other side had com