Suzette Bligh was staying at the Courtlands'—that Suzette who had been at Mrs. Raymore's party, and was, according to Christine Fanshaw, a baby compared with Anna Selford, although ten years her senior. She had neither father nor mother, and depended on her brother for a home. He had gone abroad for a time, and Lady Harriet had taken her in, partly from kindness (for Lady Harriet had kind impulses), partly to have somebody to grumble to when she was feeling too conscientious to grumble to the children. This did happen sometimes. None the less the children heard a good deal of grumbling, and in Suzette's opinion knew far too much about the state of the household. They were all girls, Lucy, Sophy, and Vera, and ranged in age from thirteen to nine. They took to Suzette, and taught her several things about the house before she had been long in it; and she relieved Lady Harriet of them to a certain extent, thereby earning gratitude no less than by her readiness to listen to grumblings. Tom was little seen just now; he came home very late and went out very early; he never met his wife; he used just to look in on the children at schoolroom breakfast, which Suzette had elected to share with them, Lady Harriet taking the meal in her own room. It was not a pleasant house to stay in, but it was tolerably comfortable, and Suzette, not asking too much of life, was content enough to be there, could tell herself that she was of use, and was happy in performing an act of friendship.

Of course the question was how long Lady Harriet would stand it. The little girls knew that this was the question; they were just waiting for mamma to break out. They had not disliked their mother in the past; occasional fits of temper are not what children hate most. They endure them, hoping for better times, or contrive to be out of the way when the tempest arises. Cracks with any implement that came handy were the order of the day when the tempest had risen; but on calm days Lady Harriet had been carelessly indulgent, and, in her way, affectionate to the girls. But now the calm days grew rarer, the tempests more frequent and violent. Fear grew, love waned, hatred was on its way to their hearts. They had never disliked their father; though they had no great respect for him, they loved him. They regarded him with compassionate sympathy, as the person on whom most of the cracks fell; and they quite understood why he wanted to keep out of the way. This was a bond of union. They had even vague suspicions as to where he went in order to get out of the way. They had listened to their mother's grumbling; they had listened to the talk of the servants too. Suzette was no check on their speculations; they liked her very much, but they were not in the least in awe of her.

"Will you take us for a walk this afternoon, Miss Bligh?" asked Sophy, at schoolroom breakfast on Sunday. "Because Garrett says mamma's not well to-day, and we'd better not go near her—she's going to stay in her own room till tea-time."

"Of course I will, dears," said Suzette Bligh.

"Oh, there's nothing the matter with mamma, really," declared Lucy—"only she's in an awful fury. I met Garrett coming out of her room, and she looked frightened to death."

"Ah, but you don't know why!" piped up Vera's youthful voice in accents of triumph. "I do! I was in the hall, just behind the curtain of the archway, and I heard Peters tell the new footman. Papa was expected last night, and mamma had left orders that she should be told when he came in. But he didn't——"

"We know all that, Vera," Sophy interrupted contemptuously. "He sent word that he'd been called out of town and wouldn't be back till Monday."

"And the message didn't get here till twelve o'clock. Fancy, Miss Bligh!"

"Well, I'm glad you're going to take us to church, and not mamma, Miss Bligh."

"I hope she won't send for any of us about anything!"

"I hope she won't send for me, anyhow," said Vera, "because I haven't done my French, and——"

"Then I shouldn't like to be you if you have to go to her," said Lucy, in a manner far from comforting.

Lady Harriet was by way of teaching the children French, and had not endeared the language to them.

"I wonder what called papa away!" mused Sophy.

"Now, Sophy, that's no business of yours," said poor Suzette, endeavouring to do good. "You've no business to——"

"Well, I don't see any harm in it, Miss Bligh. Papa's always being called away now."

"Especially when mamma's——"

"I can't listen to any more, dears. Does the vicar or the curate preach in the morning, Lucy dear?"

"Don't know, Miss Bligh. I say, Vera, suppose you go and ask mamma to let us have some of that strawberry jam at tea."

"Yes, let's make her go," Sophy chimed in gleefully.

"You may do anything you like," declared Vera, "but you can't make me go—not if you kill me, you can't!"

The two elder girls giggled merrily at her panic.

Poor Suzette was rather in despair about these children—not because they were unhappy. On the whole they had not been very unhappy. Their mother's humours, if alarming, were also the cause of much excitement. Their father's plight, if sorrowful, was by no means wanting in the comic aspect. The suspense in which they waited to see how long Lady Harriet would stand it had a distinct spice of pleasure in it. But the pity of it all! Suzette's training, no less than her fidelity to Lady Harriet, inclined her to lay far the heavier blame on Tom Courtland. But she did have a notion that Lady Harriet must be very trying—and the more she listened to the children the more that idea grew. And, between them, the mother and the father were responsible for such a childhood as this. The children were not bad girls, she thought, but they were in danger of being coarsened and demoralised; they were learning to laugh where they had better have cried. It was Suzette's way to be rather easily shocked, and she was very much shocked at this.

They were just starting for their afternoon walk, when John Fanshaw arrived and found them all in the hall. He was an old friend—Vera's godfather—and was warmly welcomed. John was very cheery to-day; he joked with the children, and paid Suzette Bligh a compliment. Then Vera wanted to know why he had called:

"Because papa's not at home, you know."

"Never mind that, puss. I've come to see your mamma."

"You've come to see mamma!" exclaimed Lucy.

Glances were exchanged between the three—humorous excited glances; admiring amused eyes turned to John Fanshaw. Here was the man who was going to enter the lion's den.

"Shall we start, dears?" suggested Suzette Bligh apprehensively.

No notice was taken. Sophy gave John a direct and friendly warning.

"You'd better look out, you know," she said; "mamma's just furious because papa's not come back."

"But it's not my fault, pussie," said John. "She can't put me in the corner for it."

"Well, if you happen to be there——" began Lucy, with an air of experience.

"We must really start, Lucy dear," urged Suzette.

"What have you come to see mamma about?" asked Vera shrilly.

"To find out how to keep little girls in order," answered John, facetiously rebuking curiosity.

"I expect you've come about papa," observed Vera, with disconcerting calmness and an obvious contempt for his joke.

"I'm going to start, anyhow," declared poor Suzette. "Come along, dears, do!"

"Well, if there's a great row, Garrett'll hear some of it and tell us," said Sophy, consoling herself and her sisters as they reluctantly walked away from the centre of interest.

John Fanshaw's happiness was with him still—the happiness which Caylesham's cheque had brought. It was not banked yet, but it would be to-morrow; and in the last two days John had taken steps to reassure everybody, to tell everybody that they would be paid without question or difficulty, to scatter the cloud of gossip and suspicion which had gathered round his credit in the City. It was now quite understood that John's firm had weathered any trouble which had threatened it, and could be trusted and fully relied on again. Hence John's happy mind, and, a result of the happy mind, a sanguine and eager wish to effect some good, to bring about some sort of reconciliation and a modus vivendi in the Courtland family. His hopes were not visionary or unreasonable: he did not expect to establish romantic bliss there; a modus vivendi commended itself to him as the best way of expressing what he was going to suggest to Lady Harriet. In this flush of happy and benevolent feeling he was really glad that he had consented to undertake the embassy.

Lady Harriet liked John Fanshaw. She called him John and, though he did not quite venture to reciprocate the familiarity, he felt that it gave him a position in dealing with her. Also he thought her a very handsome woman; and since she was aware of this, there was another desirable element in their acquaintance. And he thought that he knew how to manage women—he was sure he would not have made such a bad job of it as poor Tom had. So he went in without any fear, and found justification in the cordiality of his welcome. Indeed the welcome was too cordial, inasmuch as it was based on an erroneous notion.

"You're the very man of all men I wanted to see! I was thinking of sending for you. Come and sit down, John, and I'll tell you all about it."

"But I know all about it," he protested, "and I want to have a talk to you."

"Nobody can know but me; and I believe you're the best friend I have. I want to tell you everything and take your advice how I'm to act."

Evidently she didn't suppose that he was in any sense an ambassador from her husband. He was to be her friend. John found it difficult to correct this mistake of hers.

"I'm at the end of my patience," she said solemnly. "I'm sure anybody would be. You know what's happening as well as I do, and I intend to put an end to it."

"Oh, don't say that! I—well, I'm here just to prevent you from saying that."

"To prevent me? You know what's happening? Do you know he's staying away from home again? What do the servants think? What must the children begin to think? Am I to be exposed to that?"

She looked very handsome and spirited, with just the right amount of colour in her cheeks and an animated sparkle in her eyes.

"Why, I could name the woman!" she exclaimed. "And so could you, I daresay?"

"Don't make too much of it," he urged. "We're not children. He doesn't really care about the woman. It's only because he's unhappy."

"And whose fault is it he's unhappy?"

"And because of that he's being foolish—wasting all his money too, I'm afraid."

"Oh, I've got my settlement. I shall be all right in case of proceedings."

"Now pray don't think of proceedings, Lady Harriet."

"Not think of them! I've made up my mind to them. I wanted to ask you how to set about it."

"But it would ruin his career; it would destroy his public position."

"I can't help that. He should have thought of that for himself."

"And then think of the girls!"

"Anything would be better than going on like this—yes, better for them too."

John saw that he must face an explanation of his embassy. He got up and stood on the hearthrug.

"I'm here as the friend of you both," he began.

The colour and the sparkle both grew brighter.

"Oh, are you?" said Lady Harriet.

"It comes to this. Tom's friends—I and one or two more—have been speaking seriously to him. We've got him to say that he's ready to drop—to drop what you very properly object to—and to make another effort to find a—a modus vivendi."

"I'm glad he's got so much decent feeling! Only it comes rather late. He wants me to forgive him, does he?"

"I don't think we can put it quite so simply as that." John risked a timid smile. "There must be a give-and-take, Lady Harriet—a give-and-take, you know."

"Well?" She was relapsing into that dangerous stillness of hers. She was very quiet, but her eyes shone very bright. Tom Courtland would have known the signs, so would the girls.

"We've got him to say what I've told you; but there must be something from your side."

"What am I to do, John?" she asked, with deceptive meekness.

"Well, I think you might—well—er—express some regret that—that things haven't gone more harmoniously at home. You might hold out an olive branch, you know."

"Express regret?"

"Don't stand on a point of pride now. Haven't you sometimes been—well, a little exacting—a little quick-tempered?"

"Oh, you're in that old story, are you? Quick-tempered? Suppose I am! Haven't I enough to make me quick-tempered?"

"Yes, now you have. But what about the beginning?"

"Do you mean it was my fault in the beginning?"

"Don't you think so yourself? Partly, at all events?"

Lady Harriet took up a tortoiseshell paper-knife and played with it. Her eyes were set hard on John, who did not like the expression in them. He became less glad that he had undertaken the embassy.

"May a man desert and deceive his wife because she's a little quick-tempered?"

"No, no, of course not; that's absurd."

"It's what you're saying, isn't it?"

"We must look at it as men and women of the world."

"I look at it as a wife and a mother. Do you mean to say it was my fault in the beginning?"

John was losing patience; he saw that some plain speaking would be necessary, but his want of patience made it hard for him to do the plain speaking wisely.

"Well, yes, I do," he said. "In the beginning, you know. Tom's a good-natured fellow, and he was very fond of you. But you—well, you didn't make his home pleasant to him; and if a man's home isn't pleasant, you know what's likely to happen."

"And you're the friend I meant to send for!"

"I am your friend—that's why I venture to speak to you freely. There's no hope unless you both realise where you've been wrong. Tom acknowledges his fault and is ready to change his ways. But you must acknowledge yours and change too."

"What is my fault?"

John took a turn up and down the room.

"I must let her have it," he decided, as he came back to the hearthrug.

"You make everybody afraid of you with your lamentable fits of temper," he told her. "Tom's afraid of you, and afraid of what you might drive him into. Your children are afraid of you. Everybody's afraid of you. You make the house impossible to live in. You're even violent sometimes, I'm afraid, Lady Harriet."

If breaking a paper-knife in two be violence, she was violent then. She threw the pieces down on the table angrily.

"How dare you come to me and talk like this? I've done nothing; I've nothing to blame myself with. What I've had to put up with would have spoilt anybody's temper! Express regret? I shall do nothing of the kind. If that's what you came to ask, you can take your answer and go."

She was working herself up to the full tide of her rage. John's undertaking was quite hopeless now, but he would not recognise it yet; he determined to "let her have it" a little more still.

"Look at that!" he said, pointing to the broken paper-knife. "Just try to think what that—that sort of thing—means! What man can be expected to stand that? The state of things which has arisen is your fault. You've made no effort to govern your temper. You're reaping the fruit of what you've sown. If poor Tom had shown more firmness it might have been better."

"You'd have shown more firmness, I suppose?"

"Yes, I should; and I believe it would have done some good. You may suppose it gives me great pain to speak like this, but really it's the only way. Unless you realise how greatly you've been to blame, unless you determine to conquer this deplorable failing, there's no hope of doing any good."

She sat quiet for a moment or two longer with shining eyes, while John, now confident again and very masculine, developed the subject of the real truth about her. Then she broke out.

"You fool!" she said. "You silly fool! You come to me with this nonsense! You tell me you'd have shown more firmness! You tell me it's my fault Tom's gone off after this creature! Much you know about it all! Wonderfully wise you are! Leave other men's wives alone, and go back and look after your own, John."

"There's nothing that I'm aware of wrong in my house, Lady Harriet. We needn't bring that into the question."

"Oh, we needn't, needn't we? And there never was anything wrong, I suppose? I'm such a bad wife, am I? Other men have bad wives too."

"Do you attach any particular meaning to that?" he asked coldly, but rather uneasily.

"Do I attach——? Oh, what an idiot you are! You to come and lecture me as if I was a child! I may be anything you like, but I've never been what your wife was, John Fanshaw."

He turned on her quickly.

"What do you mean by that?"

"That's my affair."

"No, it isn't. You've dared to hint——"

"Oh, I hint nothing I don't know!"

"You shall give me an explanation of those words. I insist upon that."

"You'd better not," she laughed maliciously.

John was moved beyond self-control. He caught her by the wrist. She rose and stood facing him, her breath coming quick. She was in a fury that robbed her of all judgment and all mercy; but she had no fear of him.

"You shall withdraw those words or explain them!"

"Ask Christine to explain them!" she sneered. "What a fool you are! Here's a man to give lectures on the management of wives, when his own wife——" She broke off, laughing again.

"You shall tell me what you mean!"

"Dear me, you can't guess? You've turned very dull, John. Never mind! Don't make too much of it! Perhaps you were quick-tempered? Perhaps you didn't make her home pleasant? And if a woman's home isn't pleasant—well, you know what's likely to happen, don't you?"

Perspiration was on John Fanshaw's brow. He pressed her wrist hard.

"You she-devil!" he said. "Tell me what you mean, I say!"

"Oh, ask Christine! And if she won't tell you, I advise you to apply to Frank Caylesham, John."

"Is that true?"

"Yes, it is. Don't break my wrist."

"Caylesham!"

He held her wrist a moment longer, then dropped it, and looked aimlessly round the room.

She rubbed her wrist and glared at him with sullen eyes, her fury dying down into a malicious rancour.

"There, that's what you get from your meddling and your preaching!" she said. "I never meant to give Christine away, I never wanted to. It's your doing; you made me angry, and I hit out at you where I could. I wish to God you had never come here, John! Christine's one of the few women who are friendly to me, and now I've—— But you've yourself to thank for it."

He sank slowly into a chair; she heard him mutter "Caylesham!" again.

"If you know I've a quick temper, why do you exasperate me? You exasperate me, and then I do a thing like that! Oh, I'm not thinking of you; I'm thinking of poor Christine. I hate myself now, and that's your doing too!"

She flung herself into her chair and began to sob tempestuously. John stared past her to the wall.

"It's just what Tom's always done," she moaned through her sobs—"making me lose my temper, and say something, and then——" Her words became inarticulate.

Presently her sobs ceased; her face grew hard and set again.

"Well, are you going to sit there all day?" she asked. "Is it so pleasant that you want to stay? Do you still think you can teach me the error of my ways?"

From the first moment John Fanshaw had not doubted the truth of what she said. Things forced out by passion in that way were true. Her stormy remorse added a proof—a remorse which did not even attempt retractation or evasion. And his memory got to work. He knew now why Christine had been so reluctant to go to Caylesham. There were things back in the past too, which now became intelligible—how that acquaintance had grown and grown, how constant the companionship had been, one or two little things which had seemed odd, and then how there had been a sudden end, and they had come to see very little of Caylesham, how neither of them had seen him for a long while, till John had sent Christine to borrow fifteen thousand pounds.

"For God's sake, go!" she cried.

He rose to his feet slowly, and her fascinated eyes watched his face. His eyes were dull, and his face seemed to have gone grey. He asked her one question:

"How long ago?"

"Oh, all over years ago," she answered, with an impatient groan, drumming her fingers on the arms of her chair.

He nodded his head in a thoughtful way.

"Good-bye, Lady Harriet," he said.

"Good-bye, John." Suddenly she sprang up. "Stop! What are you going to say to Christine?"

He looked bewildered still.

"I don't know. Oh, really I don't know! My God, I never had any idea of this, and I don't know! I can't—can't realise it all, you know—and Caylesham too!"

"Are you going to tell her I told you?"

"I don't know what I'm going to do, Lady Harriet—I don't know."

"Ah!"

With a cry of exasperation she turned away and sat down in her chair again.

"Good-bye," he muttered, and slouched awkwardly out of the room.

She sat on where she was, very still, frowning, her hand holding her chin, only her restless eyes roving about the room. She was like some handsome, fierce, caged beast. There she sat for close on an hour, thinking of what she was and of what she had done—of how he had shown her the picture of herself, and of how, from malice and in her wrath, she had betrayed Christine. Once only in all this time her lips moved; they moved to mutter:

"What a cursed woman I am!"