th without the desire to pay him back
here with interest for a certain indifference.

"But I'm not really melodramatic," said Adelaide Shiffney to herself.

She could resent, but she was not a very good hater. She felt generally
too _affairee_, too civilized to hate. In her heart she rather disliked
Claude Heath as once she had rather liked him. He had had the
impertinence and lack of taste to decline her friendship, tacitly, of
course, but quite definitely. She had never been in love with him. If
she had been she would have been more definite with him. But he had
attracted her a good deal; and she always resented even the crossing of
a whim. Something in his personality and something in his physique had
appealed to her, a strangeness and height, an imaginativeness and
remoteness which features and gesture often showed in despite of his
intention. He was not like everybody. It would have been interesting to
take him in hand. It had certainly been irritating to make no impression
upon him. And now he was married and living in a delicious Arab nest
with that foolish Charmian Mansfield. So Mrs. Shiffney called Charmian
at that moment. Suddenly she felt rather melancholy and rather cross.
She wanted to give somebody a slap. She put down her tea-cup, lit a
cigarette, and drew her chair to the rail of the balcony.

Claude Heath was sipping his coffee. One long-fingered musical hand lay
on his knee. His soft hat was tilted a little forward over the eyes that
were watching the crowd. Probably he was thinking about his opera.

Mrs. Shiffney was incapable of Henriette's hard and bitter
determination. Her love was not fastened irrevocably on any man. She
wished that it was, or thought she did. Such a passion must give a new
interest to life. Often she fancied she was in love; but the feeling
passed, and she bemoaned its passing. Henriette was determined to keep a
clear field for her composer. She was ready to be suspicious, to be
jealous of every musical shadow. Mrs. Shiffney found herself wishing
that she had Henriette's incentive as she looked at Claude Heath. She
could not see his face quite clearly. Perhaps when she did--

That he should have married that silly Charmian Mansfield! Ever since
then Mrs. Shiffney had resolved to wipe them both off her
slate--gradually. Charmian had been right in her supposition. But now
Mrs. Shiffney thought she was perhaps on the edge of something that
might be more amusing than a mere wipin