l--her face rosy to his
challenge.

"Oh, yes, they are--or should be. What's the use of blackening the past
because it couldn't be the present. My dear Roger, if I hadn't--well,
let's talk plainly!--if I hadn't thrown you over, where would you be
now? We should be living in West Kensington, and I should be taking
boarders--or--no!--a country-house, perhaps, with paying guests. You
would be teaching the cockney idea how to shoot, at half a guinea a day,
and I should be buying my clothes second-hand through the _Exchange and
Mart_. Whereas--whereas----"

She bent forward again.

"You are a very rich man--you have a charming wife--a dear little
girl--you can get into Parliament--travel, speculate, race, anything you
please. And I did it all!"

"I don't agree with you," he said drily. She laughed again.

"Well, we can't argue it--can we? I only wanted to point out to you the
plain, bare truth, that there is nothing in the world to prevent our
being excellent friends again--_now_. But first--and once more--_my
letters!_"

Her tone was a little peremptory, and Roger's face clouded.

"I found two of them last night, by the merest chance--in an old
dispatch-box I took to America. They were posted to you on the way
here."

"Good! But there were three."

"I know--so you said. I could only find two."

"Was the particular letter I mentioned one of them?"

He answered unwillingly.

"No. I searched everywhere. I don't believe I have it."

She shook her head with decision.

"You certainly have it. Please look again."

He broke out with some irritation, insisting that if it had not been
returned it had been either lost or destroyed. It could matter to no
one.

Some snaring, entangling instinct--an instinct of the hunter--made her
persist. She must have it. It was a point of honour. "Poor Theresa is so
unhappy, so pursued! You saw that odious paragraph last week? I can't
run the risk!"

With a groan of annoyance, he promised at last that he would look again.
Then the sparkling eyes changed, the voice softened.

She praised--she rewarded him. By smooth transitions she slipped into
ordinary talk; of his candidature for the County Council--the points of
the great horse he rode--the gossip of the neighbourhood--the charms of
Beatty.

And on this last topic he, too, suddenly found his tongue. The cloud--of
awkwardness, or of something else not to be analyzed--broke away, and he
began to talk, and presently to ask q