hair.

"What about? Tony?"--for it was to this diminutive that Mildred had
reduced the flowing syllables of Antonio.

"No, your cousin, Maxwell Davison."

Now, Ian liked his cousin well enough, but by no means as well as he
liked Tony.

"About Max!" he exclaimed, relieved. "What's happened to him?"

"Nothing--but oh, Ian! I--hate even to speak of such a thing--"

"Never mind. Just tell me what it is."

"I was on the river with him this afternoon, and he--he made love to
me."

The lines of Ian's face suddenly hardened.

"Did he?" he returned, significantly, playing with a paper-knife. Then,
after a pause: "I'm awfully sorry, Milly. I'd no idea he was such a
cad."

"He--he wanted me to run away with him."

Ian's face became of an almost inhuman severity.

"I shall let Maxwell Davison know my opinion of him," he said.

"But it's worse--it's even more horrible than that. He was expecting me.
I--_I_ of course knew nothing about it; I only knew about the
garden-party at Lady Margaret. But he said I'd promised to come; he said
all kinds of shocking, horrid things about my having dressed myself up
for him--"

"Please don't tell me what he said, Milly," Ian interrupted, still
coldly, but with a slight expression of disgust. "I'd rather you didn't.
I suppose I ought to have taken better care of you, my poor little girl,
but really here in Oxford one never thinks of anything so outrageous
happening."

"I must tell you one thing," she resumed, almost obstinately. "He said
he knew I didn't love you--that _I_ didn't love _you_, my own darling
husband. Some one, some one--must be responsible for his thinking that.
How do I know what happens when--when I'm away. My poor Ian! Left with a
creature who doesn't love you!"

Ian rose. His face was cold and hard still, but there was a faint flush
on his cheek, the mark of a frown between his black brows. He walked to
a window and looked out into the moonlit garden, where the gnarled
apple-trees threw weird black shadows on grass and wall, like shapes of
grotesque animals, or half-hidden spectres, lurking, listening, waiting.

"We're getting on to a dangerous subject," he answered, at length.
"Don't give me pain by imagining evil about--about yourself. You could
never, under any aspect, be anything but innocent and loyal and all that
a man could wish his wife to be."

He smoothed his brow with an effort, went up to her, and taking her soft
face between his hands kissed