nd thither as if a vagrant for pure joy and the pleasure
of movement, darted and poised, circled and sailed, but all the time
his heart cried aloud for a nest and Winifred. Yet he wooed her only
silently by his follies, and set her each day farther and farther from
him.

And she--how she hated his notoriety, and was sick with weariness when
voices told her of his escapades, modulating themselves to wondering
praise. Long ago she had known that Eustace sinned against his own
nature, but she had never loved him quite enough to discover what that
nature really was. And now she had no desire to find out. He was only
her husband and the least of all men to her.

The Lanes sat at breakfast one morning and took up their letters.
Winifred sipped her tea, and opened one or two carelessly. They were
invitations. Then she tore, the envelope of a third, and, as she read
it, forgot to sip her tea. Presently she laid it down slowly. Eustace
was looking at her.

"Winifred," he said, "I have got a letter from the editor of _Vanity
Fair_."

"Oh!"

"He wishes me to permit a caricature of myself to appear in his pages."

Winifred's fingers closed sharply on the letter she had just been
reading. A decision of hers in regard to the writer of it was hanging in
the balance, though Eustace did not know it.

"Well?" said Eustace, inquiring of her silence.

"What are you going to reply?" she asked.

"I am wondering."

She chipped an eggshell and took a bit of dry toast.

"All those who appear in _Vanity Fair_ are celebrated, aren't they?" she
said.

"I suppose so," Eustace said.

"For many different things."

"Of course."

"Can you refuse the editor's request?"

"I don't know why I should."

"Exactly. Tell me when you have written to him, and what you have
written, Eustace."

"Yes, Winnie, I will."

Later on in the day he came up to her boudoir, and said to her:

"I have told him I am quite willing to have my caricature in his paper."

"Your portrait," she said. "All right. Leave me now, Eustace; I have
some writing to do."

As soon as he had gone she sat down and wrote a short letter, which she
posted herself.

A month later Eustace came bounding up the stairs to find her.

"Winnie, Winnie!" he called. "Where are you? I've something to show
you."

He held a newspaper in his hand. Winifred was not in the room. Eustace
rang the bell.

"Where is Mrs. Lane?" he asked of the footman who answered it.

"Gone out,