d her glance, turning from Catherine to her companion, made a little
malicious signal to him which only he detected, as though bidding him
take note of a curiosity.

'Yes, I care for them, I wish for their success,' said Catherine, one
hand, which trembled slightly, resting on the table beside her, her
great gray eyes fixed on Madame de Netteville. 'No Christian has any
right to do otherwise.'

Poor brave goaded soul! She had a vague idea of 'bearing testimony' as
her father would have borne it in like circumstances. But she turned
very pale. Even to her the word 'Christian' sounded like a bombshell in
that room. The great traveller looked up astounded. He saw a tall
woman in white with a beautiful head, a delicate face, a something
indescribably noble and unusual in her whole look and attitude. She
looked like a Quaker prophetess--like Dinah Morris in society--like--but
his comparisons failed him. How did such a being come _there_? He was
amazed; but he was a man of taste, and Madame de Netteville caught a
certain Aesthetic approbation in his look.

She rose, her expression hard and bright as usual.

'May one Christian pronounce for all?' she said, with a scornful
affectation of meekness. 'Mrs. Elsmere, please find some chair more
comfortable than that ottoman; and Mr. Ansdale, will you come and be
introduced to Lady Aubrey?'

After her guests had gone Madame de Netteville came back to the fire
flushed and frowning. It seemed to her that in that strange little
encounter she had suffered, and she never forgot or forgave the smallest
social discomfiture.

'Can I put up with that again?' she asked herself with a contemptuous
hardening of the lip. 'I suppose I must if he cannot be got without her.
But I have an instinct that it is over--that she will not appear here
again. Daudet might make use of her. I can't. What a specimen! A boy and
girl match, I suppose. What else could have induced that poor wretch to
cut his throat in such fashion? He, of all men.'

And Eugenie de Netteville stood thinking--not, apparently, of the
puritanical wife; the dangerous softness which over-spread the face
could have had no connection with Catherine.

Madame de Netteville's instinct was just. Catherine Elsmere never
appeared again in her drawing-room.

But, with a little sad confession of her own invincible distaste, the
wife pressed the husband to go without her. She urged it at a bitter
moment, when it was clear to her that the