nearly the same favour as the man who values women chiefly, even though
that very man is naturally far less reliable in his affection and almost
invariably deceives them. To be placed in the background of life is what
the average woman dislikes the most; she would rather be of the first
importance as a woman even if she knows she has many rivals.

Bertha was exceptional, in that she did not care for the Don Juan type
of man, but was rather inclined to despise him. She would far rather
have ambition, business, art, duty, any other object in life as her
rival, than another woman.

* * * * *

Percy received no more of the singular typewritten letters. He kept
those that he had locked up in a box. Mary had grown a little frightened
at the apparent success of those she sent. She never heard anything
about them, but she knew that Nigel had not been seeing Bertha since the
note about the picture gallery. She began to be happier again. Nigel was
a great deal more at home, though not more affectionate. And Mary was
one of those women, by no means infrequent, who are fairly satisfied if
they can, by hook or by crook, by any trick or any tyranny, keep the man
they care for somehow under the same roof with them--if only his body is
in the house, even if they know it is against his will, and that his
soul is far away. She would far rather that his desire was elsewhere, if
only _he_ were positively present--the one dread, really, being that he
should be enjoying himself with anyone else. Mary preferred a thousand
times a silent, sulky evening with Nigel going up to his room about the
same time that she went to hers, than, as he used to be when they were
first married, gay, affectionate and caressing to her, and then going
out. She would gladly make him a kind of prisoner, even at the cost of
making him almost dislike her, rather than give him his freedom--even to
please him--a freedom which included the possibility of his seeing
Bertha again.

Although she was unjust and mistaken in her facts, it was, of course, a
correct instinct that made her aware that Bertha was the great
attraction--the one real object of passion in Nigel's life. But she was
incapable of believing that Bertha did not care for him, that if she had
she would never have flirted with the husband of another woman. Merely
because Bertha was pretty and admired, Mary, with her strange
narrow-minded bitterness, took it for granted that i