Selina told me she
had packed up and was going away that afternoon, and that we needn't
expect ever to see her again. Of course I tried to talk her over, and
asked her not to be foolish, but to stop till she had her arrangements
properly made. Then she told me sharply not to mind about _her_
arrangements, and that she had no need of my charity. She pulled out
and showed me fifty pounds in bank-notes. They came the day before, she
said, and she had any number of thousands waiting for her. 'But what
about your husband?' I asked. 'My husband?' she snorted. 'I'll make
you a present of him if you like. There's another woman in love with
him, who's ready to give him as much money as he cares to take from
her. And he has any number of mistresses besides. So you don't expect
I'm going to trouble my head about him. Besides, he hasn't said six
words to me since we've been here. If he had cared about me he'd have
shown it.' And, sure enough, she went off by the afternoon train.
'Tell him he's rid of me now, as soon as he gets over his fit of the
sulks and comes back,' was the last she said. Yes, women-folk are all
crazy. You'll excuse me repeating the remark, I know, sir; but you
remember what I told you when you came on Sunday. I don't mean any
disrespect by it, but I can't help thinking you were a fool to marry
her."

And Kettering took up his cord again as if to continue his measuring.

Morgan's brain was for an instant full of a whirling mass of thought.
He could not hide from himself that he had not the slightest sense of
sorrow or regret. He knew perfectly well that Cleo esteemed him no
more than a dead twig, that, by his abstention from offering up to her
daily an incense and a sweet savour of gross flattery, he had
destroyed all possibility of her continuing to imagine he counted for
something in her life. And, of course, she was not the kind of woman
to stay in so sordid and narrow a household with a penniless man, who
was nothing to her beyond her husband--she with her gorgeous demands
upon life! No doubt her departure had been already arranged with the
person who had sent her the money she had shown her father and she had
been glad to seize upon any pretext. However, he thought it right to
assure Mr. Kettering that Cleo's accusations against him were
entirely false and that, as regards his conduct towards her, no
reproach could be made to him.

"You've no need to tell me that," said Mr. Kettering, "I never for a
mo