il,
which just came over the tip of her delicate nose, she put out her foot
as if searching for a footstool--which John made haste to supply, though
he remained unaffected otherwise by all these pretty preliminaries.

"Sit down, Mr. Tatham," then said Lady Mariamne. "It makes me wretchedly
uncomfortable, as if you were some dreadful man waiting to be paid or
something, to see you standing there."

Though John's first impulse was that of wrath to be thus requested to
sit down in his own chambers, the position was amusing as well as
disagreeable, and he laughed and drew a chair towards his writing-table,
which was as crowded and untidy as the writing-table of a busy man
usually is, and placed himself in an attitude of attention, though
without asking any question.

"Well," said Lady Mariamne, slowly drawing off her glove; "you know, of
course, why I have come, Mr. Tatham--to talk over with you, as a man who
knows the world, this deplorable business. You see it has come about
exactly as I said. I knew what would happen: and though I am not one of
those people who always insist upon being proved right, you remember
what I said----"

"I remember that you said something--to which, perhaps, had I thought I
should have been called upon to give evidence as to its correctness--I
should have paid more attention, Lady Mariamne."

"How rude you are!" she said, with her whole interest concentrated upon
the slow removal of her glove. Then she smoothed a little, softly, the
pretty hand which was thus uncovered, and said, "How red one's hands
get in this weather," and then laughed. "You don't mean to tell me, Mr.
Tatham," she said, suddenly raising her eyes to his, "that, considering
what a very particular person we were discussing, you can't remember
what I said?"

John was obliged to confess that he remembered more or less the gist of
her discourse, and Lady Mariamne nodded her head many times in
acceptance of his confession.

"Well," she said, "you see what it has come to. An open scandal, a
separation, and everything broken up. For one thing, I knew if she did
not give him his head a little that's what would happen. I don't believe
he cares a brass farthing for that other woman. She makes fun of
everybody, and that amused him. And it amused him to put Nell in a
state--that as much as anything. Why couldn't she see that and learn to
_prendre son parti_ like other people? She was free to say, 'You go your
way and I'll go mine