life of which your
judgment doesn't approve? Do you imagine they could have happened
otherwise than they did? Do you think it lay in your own power to take
the course you now think the better?"

Miriam stood up impatiently, and showed no intention of replying. Again
Elgar laughed, and waved his arm as if dismissing a subject of thought.

"Come up and look at the drawing-room," he said, walking to the door.

"Some other time. I'll come again in a few days."

"As you please. But you must take your chance of finding me at home,
unless you give me a couple of days' notice."

"Thank you," she answered coldly. "I will take my chance."

He went with her to the front door. With his hand on the latch, he said
in an undertone:

"Shall you be writing to Cecily?"

"I think not; no."

"All right. I'll let her know you called."

For Miriam, this interview was confirmative of much that she had
suspected. She believed now that Reuben and his wife, if they had not
actually agreed to live apart, were practically in the position of
people who have. The casual reference to a possible abandonment of
their house meant more than Reuben admitted. She did not interpret the
situation as any less interested person, with her knowledge of
antecedents, certainly would have done; that is to say, conclude that
Reuben was expressing his own desires independently of those which
Cecily might have formed. Her probing questions, in which she had
seemed to take Cecily's side, were in reality put with a perverse hope
of finding that such a view was untenable, and she came away convinced
that this was the case. The state of things at home considered, Cecily
would not have left for so long an absence but on her own wish.

And, this determined, she thought with increased bitterness of
Mallard's remaining in Rome. He too could not but suspect the course
that Cecily's married life was taking; by this time he might even know
with certainty. How would that affect him? In her doubt as to how far
the exchange of confidences between Cecily and Mallard was a possible
thing, she tortured herself with picturing the progress of their
intercourse at Rome, inventing chance encounters, imagining
conversations. Mrs. Lessingham was as good as no obstacle to their
intimacy; her, Miriam distrusted profoundly. Judging by her own
impulses, she attributed to Cecily a strong desire for Mallard's
sustaining companionship; and on the artist's side, she judged all but
ine