; then
at Daphne. Hurriedly, like birds frightened by a shot, they crossed the
room and just touched their hostess's hand; the Archdeacon, making up
for their precipitancy by a double dose of dignity, bowed himself out;
the door closed behind them.

"Daphne!--my dear! what is the matter?" cried Lady Barnes, in dismay.

"He spoke to me impertinently about my country!" said Daphne, turning
upon her, her black eyes blazing, her cheeks white with excitement.

"The Archdeacon!--he is always so polite!"

"He talked like a fool--about things he doesn't understand!" was
Daphne's curt reply, as she gathered up her hat and some letters, and
moved towards the door.

"About what? My dear Daphne! He could not possibly have meant to offend
you! Could he, Mr. French?" Lady Barnes turned plaintively towards her
very uncomfortable companions.

Daphne confronted her.

"If he chooses to think America immoral and degraded because American
divorce laws are different from the English laws, let him think it!--but
he has no business to air his views to an American--at a first visit,
too!" said Daphne passionately, and, drawing herself up, she swept out
of the room, leaving the others dumfoundered.

"Oh dear! oh dear!" wailed Lady Barnes. "And the Archdeacon is so
important! Daphne might have been rude to anybody else--but not the
Archdeacon!"

"How did they manage to get into such a subject--so quickly?" asked
Elsie in bewilderment.

"I suppose he took it for granted that Daphne agreed with him! All
decent people do."

Lady Barnes's wrath was evident--so was her indiscretion. Elsie French
applied herself to soothing her, while Herbert French disappeared into
the garden with a book. His wife, however, presently observed from the
drawing-room that he was not reading. He was pacing the lawn, with his
hands behind him, and his eyes on the grass. The slight, slowly-moving
figure stood for meditation, and Elsie French knew enough to understand
that the incidents of the afternoon might well supply any friend of
Roger Barnes's with food for meditation. Herbert had not been in the
drawing-room when Mrs. Fairmile was calling, but no doubt he had met her
in the hall when she was on her way to her carriage.

Meanwhile Daphne, in her own room, was also employed in meditation. She
had thrown herself, frowning, into a chair beside a window which
overlooked the park. The landscape had a gentle charm--spreading grass,
low hills, and scattered w