iff, and cold, and uncomfortable. I
suppose you do not wish to make your way into a lady's house if she
asks you not." There was a sort of smile on her face as she said
this, but he could perceive that it was a very bitter smile. "You can
easily excuse yourself."

"Yes, I can excuse myself."

"Then do so. If you are particularly anxious to dine with Mr.
Kennedy, you can easily do so at your club." In the tone of her
voice, and the words she used, she hardly attempted to conceal her
dislike of her husband.

"And now tell me about Miss Effingham," he said.

"There is nothing for me to tell."

"Yes there is;--much to tell. You need not spare me. I do not pretend
to deny to you that I have been hit hard,--so hard, that I have been
nearly knocked down; but it will not hurt me now to hear of it all.
Did she always love him?"

"I cannot say. I think she did after her own fashion."

"I sometimes think women would be less cruel," he said, "if they knew
how great is the anguish they can cause."

"Has she been cruel to you?"

"I have nothing to complain of. But if she loved Chiltern, why did
she not tell him so at once? And why--"

"This is complaining, Mr. Finn."

"I will not complain. I would not even think of it, if I could help
it. Are they to be married soon?"

"In July;--so they now say."

"And where will they live?"

"Ah! no one can tell. I do not think that they agree as yet as to
that. But if she has a strong wish Oswald will yield to it. He was
always generous."

"I would not even have had a wish,--except to have her with me."

There was a pause for a moment, and then Lady Laura answered him with
a touch of scorn in her voice,--and with some scorn, too, in her
eye:--"That is all very well, Mr. Finn; but the season will not be
over before there is some one else."

"There you wrong me."

"They tell me that you are already at Madame Goesler's feet."

"Madame Goesler!"

"What matters who it is as long as she is young and pretty, and
has the interest attached to her of something more than ordinary
position? When men tell me of the cruelty of women, I think that no
woman can be really cruel because no man is capable of suffering. A
woman, if she is thrown aside, does suffer."

"Do you mean to tell me, then, that I am indifferent to Miss
Effingham?" When he thus spoke, I wonder whether he had forgotten
that he had ever declared to this very woman to whom he was speaking,
a passion for herself.

"