do so, but this social duty amused her immensely.

"It is like a game!" she declared, laughing, "some one comes and leaves
these little cards which explain who _they_ are, on _me_,--then I go and
leave _my_ little cards and yours, explaining who _we_ are on that some
one--and we keep on doing this, yet we never see each other by any
chance! It is so droll!"

Errington did not feel called upon to explain what was really the
fact,--namely, that none of the ladies who had left cards on his wife
had given her the option of their "at home" day on which to call,--he
did not think it necessary to tell her what he knew very well, that his
"set," both in county and town, had resolved to "snub" her in every
petty fashion they could devise,--that he had already received several
invitations which, as they did not include her, he had left
unanswered,--and that the only house to which she had as yet been really
asked in proper form was that of Lady Winsleigh. He was more amused than
vexed at the resolute stand made by the so-called "leaders" of society
against her, knowing as he did, most thoroughly, how she must conquer
them all in the end. She had been seen nowhere as yet but in the Park,
and Philip had good reason to be contented with the excitement her
presence had created there,--but he was a little astonished at Lady
Winsleigh's being the first to extend a formal welcome to his unknown
bride. Her behavior seemed to him a little suspicious,--for he certainly
could not disguise from himself that she had at one time been most
violently and recklessly in love with him. He recollected one or two
most painful scenes he had had with her, in which he had endeavored to
recall her to a sense of the duty she owed to her husband,--and his face
often flushed with vexation when he thought of her wild and wicked
abandonment of despair, her tears, her passion, and distracted,
dishonoring words. Yet she was the very woman who now came forward in
the very front of society to receive his wife!--he could not quite
understand it. After all, he was a man,--and the sundry artful tricks
and wiles of fashionable ladies were, naturally, beyond him. Thelma had
never met Lady Winsleigh--not even for a passing glance in the
Park,--and when she received the invitation for the grand reception at
Winsleigh House, she accepted it, because her husband wished her so to
do, not that she herself anticipated any particular pleasure from it.
When the day came round