ertain that if she had the faintest idea of the jealousy, her door
would be closed to him.

* * * * *

Bertha was peculiarly kind, peculiarly full of sympathy for her own sex.
And yet she was not at all fond of the society of women, with few
exceptions; and she was often bored by the liking and admiration she
usually inspired in them. Something in her personality disarmed ordinary
jealousy, for though she was pretty and attractive, it was easy for
other women to see that she was not trying to attract. What the average
woman resents in another woman is not her involuntary charm; it is her
making use of it.

* * * * *

With the casual indiscretion of the selfish man, Nigel, of course, told
his wife at length, early in the honeymoon, all about his romance with
Bertha. This Mary had never forgiven. Curiously, she minded more this
old innocent affair of ten years ago, which he had broken off for _her_,
than any of his flirtations since. Bertha had rightly guessed that, when
they met, Mary had taken a great dislike to her. But she had no idea
that Nigel's wife was suspicious, nor that she seriously and bitterly
resented his visits. He never admitted them to Mary if he could help
it, for he had learnt by now to be so far considerate to her--or to
himself--that he would tell her fifty fibs in half-an-hour rather than
let out one annoying fact. Nigel saw--he was very quick in these
matters--that the only terms on which he could ever see anything of
Bertha were those of the intimate old brotherly friend; the slightest
look or suggestion of sentiment of any kind made her curl up and look
angry. She made it utterly impossible for him to make the slightest
allusion to the past. The friendliness had been growing to intimacy, and
Nigel believed that perhaps with time he might get back to the old
terms, or something like them. It was becoming the chief object of his
life. He was a keen sportsman, and the ambition of the hunter was added
to the longing of the lover. A born diplomatist, he had, of course,
easily made Percy like him immensely. But he hated Percy, and could
never forgive him for the unpardonable injury he had done to him, Nigel,
in consoling Bertha. Nigel could not bear to own, even to himself, that
Bertha was happy in her married life. Sometimes he would swear to
himself when he remembered that it was all his own doing, that she might
have been _his_ wife.