e usually
reserved for him in private; she had become more prudent, almost
cautious at times.

"I'll tell you one thing," he said with a sudden snarl: "You'd better be
careful there is no gossip about you and Plank."

She reddened under the insult.

"Now we'll see," he continued venomously, "how far you can go alone."

"Do you suppose," she asked calmly, "that I am afraid of a divorce
court?"

The question so frankly astonished him that he sat agape, unable to
reply. For years he had very naturally supposed her to be afraid of
it--afraid of not being qualified to obtain it. Indeed, he had taken
that for granted as the very corner-stone of their mutual toleration.
Had he been an ass to do so? A vague alarm took possession of him;
for, with that understanding, he had not been at all careful of his own
behaviour, neither had he been at any particular pains to conceal his
doings from her. His alarm increased. What had he against her, after
all, except ancient suspicions, now so confused and indefinite that
memory itself outlawed the case, if it ever really existed. What had she
against him? Facts--unless she was more stupid than any of her sex he
had ever encountered. And now, this defiance, this increasing prudence,
this subtle change in her, began to make him anxious for the permanency
of the small income she had allowed him during all these years--doled
out to him, as he believed, though her dormant fear of him.

"What are you talking about?" he said harshly.

"I believe I mentioned divorce."

"Well, cut it out! D'ye see? Cut it, I say. You'd stand as much chance
before a referee as a snowball in hell."

"There's no telling," she said coolly, "until one tries."

He glared at her, then burst into a laugh. "Rot!" he said thickly. "Talk
sense, Leila! And keep this hard-headed Dutchman for yourself, if you
feel that way about it. I don't want to butt in. I only thought--for old
times' sake--perhaps you'd--"

"Good night," she managed to say, her disgust almost strangling her.

And he went, furtively, heavy-footed, perplexed, inwardly cursing his
blunder in stirring up a sleeping lioness whom he had so long mistaken
for a dozing cat.

For hours he sat in his room, or paced the four walls, doubtful,
chagrined, furious by turns. Once he drew out a memorandum-book and
stood under a lighted sconce, studying the figures. His losses at
Shotover staggered him, but he had looked to his wife heretofore in such
emergen