umph of
sagacity, on a level with that other discovery which she had made the
evening before and with regard to which his especial errand to-day
had been to congratulate her afresh. It brought him, however, less
satisfaction than it appeared to bring to his clever companion; for,
as he observed plausibly enough, Gordon was quite out of his head, and,
this being the case, of what importance was the secret of his heart?

"The secret of his heart and the condition of his head are one and the
same thing," said Angela. "He is turned upside down by the wretchedly
false position that he has got into with his wife. She has treated him
badly, but he has treated her wrongly. They are in love with each other,
and yet they both do nothing but hide it. He is not in the least in love
with poor me--not to-day any more than he was three years ago. He thinks
he is, because he is full of sorrow and bitterness, and because the news
of our engagement has given him a shock. But that 's only a pretext--a
chance to pour out the grief and pain which have been accumulating in
his heart under a sense of his estrangement from Blanche. He is too
proud to attribute his feelings to that cause, even to himself; but he
wanted to cry out and say he was hurt, to demand justice for a wrong;
and the revelation of the state of things between you and me--which of
course strikes him as incongruous; we must allow largely for that--came
to him as a sudden opportunity. No, no," the girl went on, with a
generous ardor in her face, following further the train of her argument,
which she appeared to find extremely attractive, "I know what you
are going to say and I deny it. I am not fanciful, or sophistical, or
irrational, and I know perfectly what I am about. Men are so stupid; it
's only women that have real discernment. Leave me alone, and I shall do
something. Blanche is silly, yes, very silly; but she is not so bad as
her husband accused her of being, in those dreadful words which he
will live to repent of. She is wise enough to care for him, greatly, at
bottom, and to feel her little heart filled with rage and shame that
he does n't appear to care for her. If he would take her a little
more seriously--it 's an immense pity he married her because she was
silly!--she would be flattered by it, and she would try and deserve it.
No, no, no! she does n't, in reality, care a straw for Captain Lovelock,
I assure you, I promise you she does n't. A woman can tell. She i