Some men drive the woman who
belongs to them, and that not with the lightest bit, I promise you. Nor
do they forget to tie blood-knots in the whip-lash when it suits them
to do so."

"What do you mean?" he asked abruptly.

"Merely that the letters, which so stupidly endangered my self-control
at luncheon, contained examples of that kind of driving."

"How--how damnable," the young man said between his teeth.

The red and purple trunks of the great fir trees reeled away to right
and left as the carriage swept forward down the long avenue. To
Richard's seeing they reeled away in disgust, even as did his thought
from the images which his companion's words suggested. While, to her
seeing, they reeled, smitten by the eternal laughter, the echoes of
which it stimulated her to hear.--"The drama develops," she said to
herself, half triumphant, half abashed. "And yet I am telling the
truth, it is all so--I hardly even doctor it."--For she had been
angered, genuinely and miserably angered, and had found that odious to
the point of letting feeling override diplomacy. There was subtle
pleasure in now turning her very lapse of self-control to her own
advantage. And then, this young man's heart was the finest,
purest-toned instrument upon which she had ever had the chance to play
as yet. She was ravished by the quality and range of the music it gave
forth. Madame de Vallorbes pressed her hands together within the warm
comfort of her sable muff, averted her face again, lest it should
betray the eager excitement that gained on her, and continued:--

"Yes, whip and rein and bit are hardly pretty in that connection, are
they? If you would willingly give your identity the slip at times, dear
cousin, I have considerably deeper cause to wish to part company with
mine! You, in any case, are morally and materially free. A whole class
of particularly irritating and base cares can never approach you. And
it was in connection with just such cares that I spoke of the
hatefulness of return journeys."

Helen paused, as one making an effort to maintain her equanimity.

"My letters recall me to Paris," she said, "where detestable scenes and
most ignoble anxieties await me."

"How soon must you go?"

"That is what I asked myself," she said, in the same quiet, even voice.
"I have not yet arrived at a decision, and so I asked you to bring me
out Dickie, this afternoon."--She looked up at him, smiling, lovely and
with a certain wistful dignity