ir sight.

Tom came home while she slept, and in the morning was cross and
miserable--in part, because he had been so abominably selfish to her.
But the moment that, half frightened, half hopeful, she told him where
she was the night before, he broke into the worst anger he had ever yet
shown her. His shameful pride could not brook the idea that, where he
was a guest, his wife was entertained by one of the domestics!

"How dare you be guilty of such a disgraceful thing!" he cried.

"Oh, don't, Tom--dear Tom!" pleaded Letty in terror. "It was you I
wanted to see--not the great people, Tom! I don't care if I never see
one of them again."

"Why should you ever see one of them again, I should like to know! What
are they to you, or you to them?"

"But you know I was asked to go, Tom!"

"You're not such a fool as to fancy they cared about you! Everybody
knows they are the most heartless set of people in the world!"

"Then why do you go, Tom?" said Letty, innocently.

"That's quite another thing! A man has to cultivate connections his
wife need not know anything about. It is one of the necessities laid on
my position."

Letty supposed it all truer than it was either intelligible or
pleasant, and said no more, but let poor, self-abused, fine-fellow Tom
scold and argue and reason away till he was tired. She was not sullen,
but bewildered and worn out. He got up, and left her without a word.

Even at the risk of hurt to his dignity, of which there was no danger
from the presence of his sweet, modest little wife in the best of
company, it had been well for Tom to have allowed Letty the pleasure
within her reach; for that night Sepia's artillery played on him
ruthlessly. It may have been merely for her amusement--time, you see,
moves so slowly with such as have no necessities they must themselves
supply, and recognize no duties they must perform: without those two
main pillars of life, necessity and duty, how shall the temple stand,
when the huge, weary Samson comes tugging at it? The wonder is, there
is not a great deal more wickedness in the world. For listlessness and
boredness and nothing-to-do-ness are the best of soils for the breeding
of the worms that never stop gnawing. Anyhow, Sepia had flashed on Tom,
the tinder of Tom's heart had responded, and, any day when Sepia chose,
she might blow up a wicked as well as foolish flame; nor, if it should
suit her purpose, was Sepia one to hesitate in the use of the fire-fa