r's accounts, that a good many female exceptions were
admitted, no doubt by way of proving the rule. And during July, Meadows
lunched in town--in the lofty regions of St. James's or Mayfair--with
other enthusiastic women admirers, most of them endowed with long purses
and long pedigrees, at least three or four times a week. Doris was
occasionally asked and sometimes went. But she was suffering all the
time from an initial discouragement and depression, which took away
self-reliance, and left her awkwardly conscious. She struggled, but in
vain. The world into which Arthur was being so suddenly swept was
strange to her, and in many ways antipathetic; but had she been happy
and in spirits she could have grappled with it, or rather she could have
lost herself in Arthur's success. Had she not always been his slave?
But she was not happy! In their obscure days she had been Arthur's best
friend, as well as his wife. And it was the old comradeship which was
failing her; encroached upon, filched from her, by other women; and
especially by this exacting, absorbing woman, whose craze for Arthur
Meadows's society was rapidly becoming an amusement and a scandal even
to those well acquainted with her previous records of the same sort.

* * * * *

The end of July arrived. The Dunstables left town. At a concert, for
which she had herself sent them tickets, Lady Dunstable met Doris and
her husband, the night before she departed.

"In ten days we shall expect you at Pitlochry," she said, smiling, to
Arthur Meadows, as she swept past them in the corridor. Then, pausing,
she held out a perfunctory hand to Doris.

"And we really can't persuade you to come too?"

The tone was careless and patronising. It brought the sudden red to
Doris's cheek. For one moment she was tempted to say--"Thank you--since
you are so kind--after all, why not?"--just that she might see the
change in those large, malicious eyes--might catch their owner unawares,
for once. But, as usual, nerve failed her. She merely said that her
drawing would keep her all August in town; and that London, empty, was
the best possible place for work. Lady Dunstable nodded and passed on.

The ten days flew. Meadows, kept to it by Doris, was very busy preparing
another lecture for publication in an English review. Doris, meanwhile,
got his clothes ready, and affected a uniformly cheerful and indifferent
demeanour. On Arthur's last evening at home, how