. But I will sin carefully." At the Elwyns she had
discovered why her husband had not come with her. She had stayed late to
please Leo Ulford. Mr. Laycock had come in about two in the morning and
had described to Leo the festivity devised by Lord Holme in honour
of Miss Schley, at which he had just been present. And Leo Ulford had
repeated the description to her. She had deceived him into thinking that
she had known of the supper-party and approved of it. But, after this
deception, she had given a looser rein to her temper. She had let
herself go, careless whether she set the poor pink eyelids of Mrs. Leo
fluttering or not.

The hint of Fritz which she recognised in Leo Ulford had vaguely
attracted her to him from the first. How her world would have laughed at
such a domestic sentiment! She found herself wondering whether it were
Miss Schley's physical resemblance to her which had first attracted
Fritz, the touch of his wife in a woman who was not his wife and who was
what men call "a rascal." Perhaps Fritz loved Miss Schley's imitation
of her. She thought a great deal about that--turning it over and over in
her mind, bringing to bear on it the white light of her knowledge of her
husband's character. Did he see in the American his wife transformed,
made common, sly, perhaps wicked, set on the outside edge of decent
life, or further--over the border? And did he delight in that? If
so, ought she not to--? Then her mind was busy. Should she change? If
herself changed were his ideal, why not give him what he wanted? Why let
another woman give it to him? But at this point she recognised a fact
recognised by thousands of women with exasperation, sometimes with
despair--that men would often hate in their wives the thing that draws
them to women not their wives. The Pimpernel Schleys of the world
know this masculine propensity of seeking different things--opposites,
even--in the wife and the woman beyond the edge of the hearthstone, a
propensity perhaps more tragic to wives than any other that exists in
husbands. And having recognised this fact, Lady Holme knew that it would
be worse than useless for her to imitate Miss Schley's imitation of her.
Then, travelling along the road of thought swiftly as women in such a
case always travel, she reached another point. She began to consider
the advice of Robin Pierce, given before she had begun to feel with such
intensity, to consider it as a soldier might consider a plan of campaign
d