re est au theatre.... Tais-toi; tais-toi; ta mere
dine au restaurant.... Dors, ma cherie, dors."

Edith plunged into her subject as soon as they were seated and turned
toward each other. "Tell me. If you married a divorced woman, wouldn't
your whole position in England be--be different?"

"I shouldn't care anything about that."

"That's not what I'm asking you. I'm asking you if there wouldn't be
ways in which it would be hard for you?"

The honesty in his eyes pierced her like a pain. "I shouldn't be
thinking about that, you know. I should be thinking about you."

"Well, then, aren't there ways in which it would be hard for me?"

"Not any harder than it is now. It's pretty hard, isn't it?"

The tears sprang into her eyes, but she knew she must control herself.
"Yes; but it's in the way of the ills I know. The ills I know not of
might be worse."

"Oh, well, they wouldn't be that, you know."

"What about your people?" She sprang the question on him suddenly.

"They'd be all right--in time."

The qualification was like a stab. She spoke proudly. "I'm afraid I
couldn't wait for that."

"You wouldn't have to wait for anything. They'd jolly well have to put
up with what I decided to do. I've got all the say, you know. I'm the
head of the family."

"Yes, _you_ might look at it in that way; but you can easily see what it
would be to me to enter a family where I wasn't wanted."

"That's a bit strong," he corrected. "They'd want you right enough, once
they knew you. It would only be the--the fact of--the--"

She helped him out. "The divorce."

He nodded and finished. "That they'd jib at. Even then--"

"Oh, please don't think I'm blaming them. I should do exactly the same,
in their case."

"They're really not half bad, you know," he tried to explain. "Mother's
an awfully decent sort, and so is Di. Aggie's a bit cattish. But then
she'll soon be married. Fellow named Jenkins, in the Guards. And then,"
he added, irrelevantly, "you're an American."

"Which is another disadvantage."

"No," he said, with emphasis. "The other way round when it comes to
a--a--" He stumbled at the word, but faced it eventually: "When it comes
to a divorce, you know."

She looked at him mistily. "No, I don't know. Aren't a divorced
Englishwoman and a divorced American in very much the same position?"

He hastened to reassure her. "Oh, Lord, no. Not in England they wouldn't
be. A divorced Englishwoman--well, she's in rather a hole