d?"

"I know you are not, that is why I simply adore you. You are so true, so
sincere! My beau ideal of manhood!----"

"Well, it is like this. Barry has come to the conclusion that it isn't
fair to either of us to keep dragging at our chains when we have long
ceased to care for each other, so he wrote, yesterday, to tell me that
he would put no obstacle in my way if I wished to divorce him. There is
someone he is keen on and whom he will marry in due course. I can do the
same. He has heard about you--just rumour--but as a woman is always the
one to suffer most in a suit for divorce he has most generously
suggested that the initiative should come from me. Rather decent of him,
what?"

"Tremendously decent," said Jack his heart becoming like lead in his
breast. For a moment the lights of the theatre swam; he felt deadly sick
and cold, and failed to take in the sense of what she continued to say.
In the midst of his mental upheaval the lights mercifully went down and
the curtain up, so that much of his emotion passed unnoticed.

"Why Jack!--think of it, we shall be able to marry after it is all
finished!--only a few months to wait!"

"Yes," said he with dry lips.

"Try to look as if you are glad!" she teased. "You know you are crazy
with delight. It is what we were longing for. Be a little responsive,
old dear," she said, giving his hand a squeeze.

Jack returned the pressure, feeling like a trapped creature with no hope
of escape. Marriage with Mrs. Barrington Fox had never at any time
entered into his calculations. He was too young, to begin with, and
certainly did not wish to be tied down to the woman who had played upon
his untried passions.

Waves of self-disgust and dread seemed to overwhelm him.

He sat on for the next few minutes seeing nothing, hearing nothing,
saying nothing, while he anathematised himself mentally as every kind of
a fool, Barrington Fox as a contemptible blackguard, and the woman
beside him as something unspeakable. He could not deny his own
culpability; but he had felt all along that a nature like his was as wax
in such unscrupulous and experienced hands.

He had been weak--yes, damnably weak! that was about the sum and total
of it. And he would have to spend the rest of his life in paying for it!

What would the mater say? He thought of her first; the proud and
handsome dame who had placed all her hopes on her eldest son--who
thought no one good enough to be his wife.

His pater