it was done the Home Secretary had begun to find Meadows's
little wife, whose existence he had not noticed hitherto, more agreeable
than Lady Dunstable's table with its racked countenances, and its too
ample supply of pencils and paper. A deadly crime! When Lady Dunstable,
on the stroke of midnight, swept through the rooms to gather her guests
for bed, she cast a withering glance on Doris and her companion.

"So you despised our little amusements?" she said, as she handed Mrs.
Meadows her candle.

"I wasn't worthy of them," smiled Doris, in reply.

* * * * *

"Well, I call that a delightful visit!" said Meadows as the train next
morning pulled out of the Crosby Ledgers station for London. "I feel
freshened up all over."

Doris looked at him with rather mocking eyes, but said nothing. She
fully recognised, however, that Arthur would have been an ungrateful
wretch if he had not enjoyed it. Lady Dunstable had been, so to speak,
at his feet, and all her little court had taken their cue from her. He
had been flattered, drawn out, and shown off to his heart's content, and
had been most naturally and humanly happy. "And I," thought Doris with
sudden repentance, "was just a spiky, horrid little toad! What was wrong
with me?" She was still searching, when Meadows said reproachfully:

"I thought, darling, you might have taken a little more trouble to make
friends with Lady Dunstable. However, that'll be all right. I told her,
of course, we should be delighted to go to Scotland."

"Arthur!" cried Doris, aghast. "Three weeks! I couldn't, Arthur! Don't
ask me!"

"And, pray, why?" he angrily inquired.

"Because--oh, Arthur, don't you understand? She is a man's woman. She
took a particular dislike to me, and I just had to be stubborn and
thorny to get on at all. I'm awfully sorry--but I _couldn't_ stay with
her, and I'm certain you wouldn't be happy either."

"I should be perfectly happy," said Meadows, with vehemence. "And so
would you, if you weren't so critical and censorious. Anyway"--his
Jove-like mouth shut firmly--"I have promised."

"You couldn't promise for me!" cried Doris, holding her head very high.

"Then you'll have to let me go without you?"

"Which, of course, was what you swore not to do!" she said, provokingly.
"I thought my wife was a reasonable woman! Lady Dunstable rouses all my
powers; she gives me ideas which may be most valuable. It is to the
interest of both of us