Majendie could never be angry with any woman for more than five minutes. And this time he understood his wife better than she knew. He had seen, as Edith had said, "everything."

But Anne was convinced that he never would see. She said to herself, "He thinks me hard, and obstinate, and cruel."

She crept into bed in misery that suggested a defeated thing. The outward eye would never have perceived that the pale woman quivering under the eider-down was inspired with an indomitable purpose, the salvation of a weak man from his weakness. To be sure, she had been worsted in her encounter by something that conveyed the illusion of superior moral force. But that there was any strength in her husband that could be described as moral Anne would not have admitted for a moment. She believed herself to be crushed, grossly, by the superior weight of moral deadness that he carried.

It was, it always had been, his placidity that caused her most despair. But whereas, at the time of their first rupture, it had made him utterly impenetrable, she now took it simply as one more sign of his inability to understand her. She argued that he would never have remained so calm if he had realised the sincerity of her determination to repudiate Mr. Gorst. Of course she didn't expect him to appreciate the force and the fine quality of her feeling. Still, he might at least have known that, if she had found it hard to pardon her own husband his lapses in the past, she would not be likely to accept a recent and notorious evildoer.

She tried to forget that in this she herself had been wounded as a woman and a wife. It was the offence to heaven that she minded, rather than her own mere human hurt. Still, he had asked her to share his house and the sad burden of it (her thought touched gently on the sadness and the burden); and it was the least he could do to keep it undefiled by such presences. He ought to have known what was due to the woman he had married. If he did not, she said to herself sorrowfully, he must learn.

She never doubted that he would learn completely when he was once persuaded that she had meant what she had said; when he saw that he was driving her out of the house by inviting Mr. Gorst into it. To her the question was of supreme importance. Whatever happiness was now left to them must stand or fall by the expulsion of the prodigal.

If she had examined herself, Anne would have found that she hardly knew which she really wished for more: that Majendie would at once surrender to her view and leave off inviting Gorst, or that he would invite him at once, and thus give her an occasion for her protest. That Majendie was peaceable and disinclined to fight she gathered from the fact that he had not invited him at once.

At last, one morning, he looked up quietly from his breakfast, and remarked that he had invited Gorst (he laid a slightly irritating stress upon the name) to dinner on Friday.

The day was Tuesday.

"And is he coming?" said Anne.

"He is," said Majendie.

When Friday came, Anne remarked at breakfast that she was going to dine with Mrs. Eliott.

"I thought you would," said Majendie.

She had hoped that he would think she wouldn't.

They dined at seven o'clock in Thurston Square, and at half-past seven in Prior Street, so that she would be well out of the house before Gorst came into it. It was raining heavily. But Anne looked upon the rain as her ally. Walter would be ashamed to think he had driven her out in such weather.

He insisted on accompanying her to the Eliotts' door.

"Not a nice evening for turning out," said he as he opened his umbrella and held it over her.

"Not at all," said she significantly.

At ten o'clock he came to fetch her in a cab.

Now, the cab, the escort, and the sheltering umbrella somewhat diminished the grievance of her enforced withdrawal from her home. And Majendie's manner did still more to take the wind out of the proud sails of her tragic adventure. But Anne herself was a sufficiently pathetic figure as she appeared under his umbrella, descending from the Eliotts' doorstep, with delicate slippered feet, gathering her skirts high from the bounding rain, and carrying in her hands the boots she had not waited to put on.

Majendie uttered the little tender moan with which he was used to greet a pathetic spectacle.

"He sounds," said Anne to herself, "as if he were sorry."

He looked it, too; he seemed the very spirit of contrition, as he sat in the cab, with Anne's boots on his knees, guarding them with a caressing hand. But she detected an impenitent brilliance in his eye as he stood in the lamplight and helped her off with the mackintosh which dripped with its passage from the cab to their doorstep.

"I think my feet are wet," said she.

"There's a splendid fire in the study," said he.

He drew up a chair, and made her sit in it, and took off her shoes and stockings, and dried them at the fire. He held her cold feet in his hands to warm them. Then he stooped down and laid his face against them and kissed them. And she heard again his low, tender moan, and took it for a cry of contrition. He rose from his knees and laid his hand on her shoulder. She looked up, prepared to receive his chivalrous submission, to gather into her bosom the full harvest of her protest, and then magnanimously forgive.

It was not surrender, certainly not surrender, that she saw in the downward gaze that had drawn her to him. His eyes were dancing, dancing gaily, to some irresistible measure in his head.

"It was worth while, wasn't it?" said he.

"What was worth while?"

"Getting your feet wet, for the pleasure of not dining with Gorst?"

There were moments, Anne might have owned, when he did not fail in sympathy and comprehension. Had she been capable of self-criticism, she would have found that her attitude of protest was a moral luxury, and that moral luxuries were a necessity to natures such as hers. But Anne had a secret, cherishing eye on martyrdom, and it was intolerable to her to be reminded in this way that, after all, she was only a spiritual voluptuary.

Still more intolerable was the large indulgence of her husband's manner. He seemed positively to pander to her curious passion, while preserving an attitude of superior purity. He multiplied her opportunities. A week had hardly passed before Mr. Gorst dined in Prior Street again, and Anne again took refuge in Thurston Square.

This time Majendie made no comment on her action. He seemed to take it for granted.

But Anne, standing up heroically for her principle, was sustained by a sense of moving in a divine combat. Every time she dined in Thurston Square, she felt that she had thrown down her gage; every time that Majendie invited Gorst, she felt that he stooped to pick it up. Thus unconsciously she breathed hostility, and was suspicious of hostility in him.

When she announced, at breakfast one Monday, that she had asked the Eliotts, the Gardners, Canon Wharton, and Miss Proctor, for dinner on Wednesday, she uttered each name as if it had been a challenge, and looked for some irritating maneuver in response. He would, of course, proclaim that he was going to dine with the Hannays, or he would effect a retreat to Mr. Gorst's rooms, or to his club.

But Majendie lacked her passion and her inspiration. He simply said he was delighted to hear it, and that he would make a point of being at home. He would have to give up an engagement which he would not have made if he had known. But that did not greatly matter.

They came, the Eliotts and the rest, and Miss Proctor again pronounced him charming. To be sure, he was not half so amusing as he had been on his first appearance in Thurston Square; but it was only becoming that he should repress himself a little at his own table and in the presence of the Canon. He, the Canon, was brilliant, if you like.

For that night the Canon was, as usual, all things to all men, and especially to all women. He was the man of the world for Miss Proctor; the fine epicure of books for Mrs. Eliott; for Mr. Eliott and Dr. Gardner, the broad-minded searcher and enthusiast, the humble camp-follower of the conquering sciences. "You are the pioneers," said he; "you go before us on the march. But we keep up, we keep up. We can step out—cassock and all."

But he spread out all his spiritual lures for Mrs. Majendie. His eyes seemed more than ever to pursue her, to search her, to be gazing discreetly at the secret of her soul. They drew her with the clear and candid flattery of their understanding. She could feel the clever little Canon taking her in and making notes on her. "Sensitive. Unhappy. Intensely spiritual nature. Too fine and pure for him." And over the unhallowed, half-abandoned table, flushed slightly with Majendie's good wine, the Canon drew up his chair to his host, and stretched his little legs, and let his spirit expand in a rosy, broad humanity. As he had charmed the spiritual woman he saw in Anne, so he laid himself out to flatter the natural man he saw in Majendie. And Majendie leaned back in his chair, and gazed at the Canon, the remarkable, the clever, the versatile little Canon, with half-closed eyelids veiling his contemptuous eyes. (He confided to Hannay, later on, that the Canon, in his after-dinner moments, made him sick.)

Anne heard nothing more of Mr. Gorst for over a fortnight. It was on a Saturday, and Majendie asked her suddenly, during luncheon, if she thought the Eliotts would be disengaged that evening.

"Why?"

"Because I've asked Gorst" (again that disagreeable emphasis) "to dine to-night."

"Very well. I will ask Mrs. Eliott if she can have me."

"Can you?"

"Perfectly."

"Oh—and I must prepare you for something quite horrible. Some time, you know" (he smiled provokingly), "I shall have to ask the Hannays. Do you think you can arrange that?"

"I shall have to," said she.

This time (it was the third) she was obliged to take Mrs. Eliott into her confidence. She fairly flung herself on her friend's mercy.

"I feel as if I were making use of you," said she.

"My dear, make any use of me you please. I'm always here. You can come to me any time you want to escape."

"To escape?" Anne's face flew a colour that was a flag of defiance to any reflection on her husband. She would be loyal to him as long as she lived. Not one of her friends should know of her trouble and her fear.

"From your Gorsts and Hannays and people."

"Oh, from them." Anne felt that she was shielding him.

Mrs. Eliott marked the flag of defiance and the attitude of defence. If Anne had meant to "give him away," she could not have given him more lavishly. Mrs. Elliott's sad inward comment was that there was more in all this than met the eye.

And Anne's life now continued on this rather uncomfortable footing. The Hannays came to dinner, and she dined with Mrs. Eliott. The Ransomes came, and she dined with Mrs. Eliott. Mr. Gorst came (for the fourth time in as many weeks), and she dined with Mrs. Eliott. She began to wonder whether the Eliotts' hospitality would stand the strain. She also wondered whether her other friends in Thurston Square were wondering; and what Canon Wharton must think of it. It had not occurred to her to wonder what Mr. Gorst would think.

At first he thought nothing of it. When he found that he had not to encounter the terrible eyes of Mrs. Majendie, Mr. Gorst's relief was so great that it robbed him of reflection. And when he began to think, he merely thought that Majendie had asked him because his wife was absent, rather than that Majendie's wife was absent because he had been asked. Majendie had calculated on this. He was not in the least distressed by Anne's absences. He believed that she was thoroughly enjoying both her own protest and Mrs. Eliott's society. And the arrangement really solved the problem nicely. Otherwise the whole thing was trivial to him. He remained unaware of the tremendous spiritual conflict that was being waged round the person of the unhappy Gorst.

But Christmas was now at hand and Christmas brought the problem back again in a terrific form. For ten years poor Gorst had dined with his friends in Prior Street on Christmas Day. His presence was considered by Edith to borrow a peculiar significance and sanctity from the festival. Did they not celebrate on that day the birth of the Divine Humanity, the solemn advent of redeeming love? Punctually on Christmas Day the prodigal returned from his farthest wanderings, and made for Prior Street as for his home. He had never missed a Christmas. And how could they expel him now? His coming was such a sacred and established thing, that he had spoken of it to Edith as a certainty. And it was as a certainty that Edith spoke of it to Majendie.

She asked him how they were to break the news to Anne.

"Better not break it at all," said he. "Just let him come."

"If he does," said Edith, "she'll walk straight out of the house."

"Oh no, she won't."

"Yes, she will. On principle. I understand her."

"I confess I don't."

"But I believe," said she, "if you explained it all to her, she'd give in for once."

Rather against his judgment, he endeavoured to explain, "We simply can't not ask him, you know."

"Ask him by all means. But I shall have to put myself on the Gardners, or the Proctors, for the Eliotts are away."

"Don't be absurd. You know you won't be allowed to do anything of the sort."

"There's nothing else left for me to do."

He looked at her gravely; but his speech was light, for it was not in him to be weighty. "Don't you think that, at this holy season, for the sake of peace, and good-will, and all the rest of it, you might drop it just for once? And let the poor chap have a happy Christmas?"

She seemed to be considering it. "You think me very hard," said she.

"Oh no, no, not hard." But he was wondering for the first time what this wife of his was made of.

"Yes, hard. I don't want you to think me hard. If you could understand why I cannot meet that man—what it means to me—the effect it has on me."

"What," he said, "is the precise effect?" He was really interested. He had always been curious to know how different men affected different women, and to get his knowledge at first hand.

"It's the effect," said she, "of being brought into contact with something terribly painful and repulsive, the effect of intense suffering—of unbearable disgust."

He listened with his thoughtful, interested air. "I know. The effect that your friend Canon Wharton sometimes has on me."

"I see no resemblance between Canon Wharton and your friend Mr. Gorst."

"And I see no resemblance between my friend Mr. Gorst and Canon Wharton."

She was silent, gathering all her strength to deliver her spirit's last appeal.

"Dear," said she (for she wished to be very gentle with him, since he had thought her hard), "dear, I wonder if you ever realise what the thing we call—purity is?"

He blushed violently.

"I only know it's one of those things one doesn't speak about."

"I must speak," said she.

"You needn't," he said curtly; "I understand all right."

"If you did you wouldn't ask me. All the same, Walter—" She lifted to him the set face of a saint surrendered to the torture—"If you compel me—"

"Compel you? I can't compel you. Especially if you're going to look like that."

"It's no use," he said to Edith. "First she talks of dining with the Gardners—"

"She will, too—"

"No. She'll stay—if I compel her."

"Oh, I see. That's worse. She'd let him see it. He wouldn't enjoy his Christmas if he came."

"No, poor fellow, I really don't think he would. She's awfully funny about him."

"You still think her funny?"

"My dear—it's the only way to take her. I'm sorry, but I can't let Charlie spoil her Christmas; nor," he added, "Anne his."

So Mr. Gorst did not come to Prior Street that Christmas. There came instead of him whole sheaves and stacks of flowers, Christmas roses and white lilies, the sacred flowers which, at that festival, the poor prodigal brought as his tribute to his adored and beloved lady.

He spent the greater part of his Christmas Day in the society of Mr. Dick Ransome, and the greater part of his Christmas Night in the society of pretty Maggie Forrest, the new girl in Evans's shop who had sold him the Christmas roses and the lilies. "For," said he, "if I can't go and see Edie, I'll go and see Maggie." And he enjoyed seeing Maggie as much as it was possible to enjoy anything that was not seeing Edie.

And Edie lay among her Christmas roses and her lilies, and smiled, with a high courage, at Nanna, at Majendie, and Anne; and did her best to make everybody believe that she was having a very happy Christmas. But at night, when it was all over, Majendie held a tremulous and tearful Edie in his arms.

"Don't think me a brute, darling," he said. "I would have insisted, only if he'd come to-day he'd have found out he wasn't wanted."

"I know; and he never would have come again."

He didn't come. For Canon Wharton enlightened Mrs. Hannay, and Mrs. Hannay enlightened Mr. Hannay, and Mr. Hannay enlightened Mr. Gorst.

"Of course," said the prodigal, "if she walks out of the house when I walk into it, I can't very well go."

"Well, not at present, perhaps, for the sake of peace," said Hannay. "It strikes me poor old Majendie's in a pretty tight place with that wife of his."

So, for the sake of peace, Mr. Gorst kept away from Prior Street and his Edie, and spent a great deal of time in Evans's shop, cultivating the attention of Miss Forrest.

And, for the sake of peace, Majendie kept silence, and his sister concealed her trembling and her tears.