a claim to good looks."

"Yes, the men make fools of themselves," admitted he. "But I notice
that the men manage somehow to make the careers, and hold on to the
money and the power, while the women have to wheedle and fawn and
submit in order to get what they want from the men. There's nothing to
be said for your sex. It's been hopelessly corrupted by mine. For all
the talk about the influence of woman, what impression has your sex
made upon mine? And your sex--it has been made by mine into exactly
what we wished it to be. Take my advice, get out of your sex. Abandon
it, and make a career."

After a while she recalled with a start the events of less than an hour
ago--events that ought to have seemed wildly exciting, arousing the
deepest and strongest emotions. Yet they had made no impression upon
her. Absolutely none. She had no horror in the thought that she had
been the victim of a bigamist; she had no elation over her release into
freedom and safety. She wondered whether this arose from utter
frivolousness or from indifference to the trifles of conventional joys,
sorrows, agitations, excitements which are the whole life of most
people--that indifference which is the cause of the general opinion
that men and women who make careers are usually hardened in the process.

As she lay awake that night--she had got a very bad habit of lying
awake hour after hour--she suddenly came to a decision. But she did
not tell Keith for several days. She did it in this way:

"Don't you think I'm looking better?" she asked.

"You're sleeping again," said he.

"Do you know why? Because my mind's at rest. I've decided to accept
your offer."

"And my terms?" said he, apparently not interested by her announcement.

"And your terms," assented she. "You are free to stop whenever the
whim strikes you; I must do exactly as you bid. What do you wish me to
do?"

"Nothing at present," replied he. "I will let you know."

She was disappointed. She had assumed that something--something new
and interesting, probably irritating, perhaps enraging, would occur at
once. His indifference, his putting off to a future time, which his
manner made seem most hazily indefinite, gave her the foolish and
collapsing sense of having broken through an open door.

VII

THE first of September they went up to town. Stanley left at once for
his annual shooting trip; Donald Keith disappeared, saying--as was his
habit--neither what he