ollowed her. She held the door, which I was about to shut, and left
it open. Before Jaffery had time to rise at our entrance, I caught sight
of him sitting as she had left him, great clumps of his red hair
sticking through his fingers. His face was a picture of woe. I can
imagine nothing more like it than that of a conscience smitten lion.
Doria ran her arm through mine and kept me near the doorway.

"I've asked Jaffery to marry me," she said, in a steady voice, "and he
doesn't want to. It's because he loves a much better woman and wants to
marry her."

Then while Jaffery and Liosha gasped in blank astonishment, she swung me
abruptly out of the room and slammed the door behind her.

"There," she said, and flung up her little bead, "what do you think of
that?"

"Magnificent," said I, "but bewildering. Did Jaffery really--?"

In a few words, she put me into possession of the bare facts.

"I'm not sorry," she added. "Sometimes I love Jaffery--because he's so
lovable. Sometimes I hate him--because--oh, well--because of Adrian. You
can't understand."

"I'm not altogether a fool," said I.

"Well, that's how it is. I would have worn myself to death to try to
make him happy. You believe me?"

"I do indeed, my dear," I replied. And I replied with unshakable
conviction. She was a woman who once having come under the domination of
an idea would obey it blindly, ruthlessly, marching straight onwards,
looking neither to right nor left. The very virtue that had made her
overcruel to him in the past would have made her overkind to him in the
future. Unwittingly she had used a phrase startlingly true. She would
have worn herself to death in her determination to please. Incidentally
she would have driven him mad with conscientious dutifulness.

"He would have found no fault with me that I could help," she said. "But
we needn't speak of it any more. I'm not the woman for him. Liosha is.
It's all over. I'm glad. At any rate, I've made atonement--at least,
I've tried--as far as things lay in my power."

I took both her hands, greatly moved by her courage.

"And what's going to happen to you, my dear?"

"Now that all this is straight," she replied, with a faint smile, "I can
turn round and remake my life. You and Barbara will help."

"With all our hearts," said I.

"It won't be so hard for you, ever again, I promise. I shall be more
reasonable. And the first favour I'll ask you, dear Hilary, is to let me
go this afternoon.