nvitation. "But anybody may ask a husband--or a
wife--to lunch, separately. That's understood. I shan't do it often,
however--that I can tell them!" And justified by this Spartan temper as
to the future, he wrote a charming note, accepting the delights of the
present, so full of epigram that the Cabinet Minister to whom it was
addressed had no sooner read it than he consigned it instanter to his
wife's collection of autographs.

Meanwhile Doris was occupied partly in soothing the injured feelings of
Jane, and partly in smoothing out and inspecting her one evening frock.
She decided that it would take her a week to "do it up," and that she
would do it herself. "A week wasted!" she thought--"and all for nothing.
What do we want with Lady Dunstable! She'll flatter Arthur, and make him
lazy. They all do! And I've no use for her at all. _Maid_ indeed! Does
she think nobody can exist without that appendage? How I should like to
make her live on four hundred a year, with a husband that will spend
seven!"

She stood, half amused, half frowning, beside the bed on which lay her
one evening frock. But the frown passed away, effaced by an expression
much softer and tenderer than anything she had allowed Arthur to see of
late. Of course she delighted in Arthur's success; she was proud,
indeed, through and through. Hadn't she always known that he had this
gift, this quick, vivacious power of narrative, this genius--for it was
something like it--for literary portraiture? And now at last the
stimulus had come--and the opportunity with it. Could she ever forget
the anxiety of the first lecture--the difficulty she had had in making
him finish it--his careless, unbusiness-like management of the whole
affair? But then had come the burst of praise and popularity; and
Arthur was a new man. No difficulty--or scarcely--in getting him to work
since then! Applause, so new and intoxicating, had lured him on, as she
had been wont to lure the black pony of her childhood with a handful of
sugar. Yes, her Arthur was a genius; she had always known it. And
something of a child too--lazy, wilful, and sensuous--that, too, she had
known for some time. And she loved him with all her heart.

"But I won't have him spoilt by those fine ladies!" she said to herself,
with frowning clear-sightedness. "They make a perfect fool of him. Now,
then, I'd better write to Lady Dunstable. Of course she ought to have
written to me!"

So she sat down and wrote: