when she
went to her ball he would go to bed. But in the course of the afternoon
she told him that she was writing to Lady Brabazon to decline. "Why
won't you go?" said he.

"I don't care about it."

"If you mean that you won't go without me, of course I will go."

"It isn't that exactly. Of course it is nicer if you go; though I
wouldn't take you if you don't like it. But----"

"But what, dear?"

"I think I'd rather not to-night. I don't know that I am quite strong
enough." Then he didn't say another word to press her,--only begging
that she would not go to the dinner either if she were not well. But
she was quite well, and she did go to the dinner.

Again she had meant to tell him why she would not go to Mrs. Jones's
ball, but had been unable. Jack De Baron would be there, and would want
to know why she would not waltz. And Adelaide Houghton would tease her
about it, very likely before him. She had always waltzed with him, and
could not now refuse without some reason. So she gave up her ball,
sending word to say that she was not very well. "I shouldn't at all
wonder if he has kept her at home because he's afraid of you," said
Mrs. Houghton to her cousin.

Late in the following afternoon, before her husband had come home from
his club, she told her father the whole story of her interview with
Miss Mildmay. "What a tiger," he said, when he had heard it. "I have
heard of women like that before, but I have never believed in them."

"You don't think she will tell him?"

"What matter if she does? What astonishes me most is that a woman
should be so unwomanly as to fight for a man in such a way as that. It
is the sort of thing that men used to do. 'You must give up your claim
to that lady, or else you must fight me.' Now she comes forward and
says that she will fight you."

"But, papa, I have no claim."

"Nor probably has she?"

"No; I'm sure she has not. But what does that matter? The horrid thing
is that she should say all this to me. I told her that she couldn't
know that I was married."

"She merely wanted to make herself disagreeable. If one comes across
disagreeable people one has to bear with it. I suppose she was jealous.
She had seen you dancing or perhaps talking with the man."

"Oh, yes."

"And in her anger she wanted to fly at some one."

"It is not her I care about, papa."

"What then?"

"If she were to tell George."

"What if she did? You do not mean to say that he would believe her?