. Talcott commented warily, folding the letter and glancing
at Madame von Marwitz; "she don't let any grass grow under her feet,
does she? Do you want her down?"

"Want her! Why should I want her! The insufferable fool!" cried Madame
von Marwitz still striding to and fro with tigerish regularity. "Does
she think me, too, a fool, to be taken in by her grimaces of loyalty
when it is as apparent as the day that delight is her chief emotion.
Here is her opportunity--_parbleu!_--At last! I am in the dust--and if
also in the dock so much the better. She will stand by me when others
fall away. She will defend the prostrate Titaness from the vultures that
prey upon her and gain at last the significance she has, for so long, so
eagerly and so fruitlessly pursued. Ah!--_par exemple!_ Let her come to
me expecting gratitude. I will spurn her from me like a dog!" Madame von
Marwitz, varying her course, struck a chair aside as she spoke.

"Well, I shouldn't fly out at her if I was you," said Mrs. Talcott.
"She's as silly as they make 'em, I allow, but it's all to the good if
her silliness keeps her sticking to you through thick and thin. It's
just as well to have someone around to drive off the vultures, even if
it's only a scarecrow--and Miss Scrotton is better than that. She's a
pretty brainy woman, for all her silliness, and she's pretty fond of
you, too, only you haven't treated her as well as she thinks you ought
to have, and it makes her feel kind of spry and cheerful to see that her
time's come to show you what a fine fellow she is. Most folks are like
that, I guess," Mrs. Talcott mused, returning to her stocking, "they
don't suffer so powerful over their friends' misfortunes if it gives
them a chance of showing what fine fellows they are."

"Friends!" Madame von Marwitz repeated with scorching emphasis.
"Friends! Truly I have proved them, these friends of mine. Cowards and
traitors all, or crouching hounds. I am to be left, I perceive, with the
Scrotton as my sole companion." But now she paused in her course, struck
by a belated memory. "You had a letter. You have heard from the
husband."

"Yes, I have," said Mrs. Talcott, "and you may as well see it." She drew
forth Gregory's letter from under the heap of darning appliances on her
lap.

Madame von Marwitz snatched it from her and read it, once rapidly, once
slowly; and then, absorbed again in dark meditations, she stood holding
it, her eyes fixed on the ground.

"He a