st...!' Lady Wathin hung for the word.

'Infernal,' said Lady Dunstane, whose brows had been bent inquiringly.
'Have no fear. The freedom you allude to will not be used to interfere
with any entertainment in prospect. It was freedom my friend desired.
Now that her jewel is restored to her, she is not the person to throw it
away, be sure. And pray, drop the subject.'

'One may rely... you think?'

'Oh! Oh!'

'This release coming just before the wedding...!'

'I should hardly suppose the man to be the puppet you depict, or
indicate.'

'It is because men--so many--are not puppets that one is conscious of
alarm.'

'Your previous remark,' said Lady Dunstane, 'sounded superstitious. Your
present one has an antipodal basis. But, as for your alarm, check it:
and spare me further. My friend has acknowledged powers. Considering
that, she does not use them, you should learn to respect her.'

Lady Wathin bowed stiffly. She refused to partake of lunch, having, she
said, satisfied her conscience by the performance of a duty and arranged
with her flyman to catch a train. Her cousin Lady Dunstane smiled
loftily at everything she uttered, and she felt that if a woman like
this Mrs. Warwick could put division between blood-relatives, she could
do worse, and was to be dreaded up to the hour of the nuptials.

'I meant no harm in coming,' she said, at the shaking of hands.

'No, no; I understand,' said her hostess: 'you are hen-hearted over
your adopted brood. The situation is perceptible and your intention
creditable.'

As one of the good women of the world, Lady Wathin in departing was
indignant at the tone and dialect of a younger woman not modestly
concealing her possession of the larger brain. Brains in women she
both dreaded and detested; she believed them to be devilish. Here were
instances:--they had driven poor Sir Lukin to evil courses, and that
poor Mr. Warwick straight under the wheels of a cab. Sir Lukin's name
was trotting in public with a naughty Mrs. Fryar-Gunnett's: Mrs. Warwick
might still trim her arts to baffle the marriage. Women with brains,
moreover, are all heartless: they have no pity for distress, no horror
of catastrophes, no joy in the happiness of the deserving. Brains in men
advance a household to station; but brains in women divide it and are
the wrecking of society. Fortunately Lady Wathin knew she could rally
a powerful moral contingent, the aptitude of which for a one-minded
cohesion enabled i