me a queen of society.  I
watched you; I saw your indiscretions; I spoke to you, and your answer
was an open defiance.  Then it was that my sympathy with you gradually
diminished.  You had become a smart woman, and had developed that
irremediable disorder which every smart woman nowadays is bound sooner
or later to develop--a callous heart.  The crowd of men about you became
as so many puppets ready to execute your imperious will, and soon, as I
expected, the fiery breath of scandal seared your good name.  You
laughed, knowing well that the very fact of your being talked about
added lustre to your popularity as a smart hostess.  I regretted all
this, because my belief in your honesty--that belief which had first
come to me long ago in the green meadows round about Winchester--was
utterly shattered.  The naked truth become exposed--you were deceiving
me."

"No, Dudley!" the woman wailed beseechingly.  "Spare me these
reproaches!  I cannot bear them--and least of all from you.  I have been
foolish--very foolish, I admit.  Had you been my husband I should have
been a different woman, leading a quiet and happy life, but as I am
now--I--" She burst into a torrent of tears without finishing her
confession.

"If you acknowledge what I have said to be the truth, Claudia, we are
agreed, and more need not be said," he observed, when, a few moments
later, she had grown calm again.

"You are tired of me, Dudley," she declared, suddenly raising her head
and looking straight into his eyes.  "We have been--close friends, shall
I say? long enough.  You have found some other woman who pleases you--a
woman more charming, more graceful than myself.  Now, confess to me the
truth," she said with deep earnestness.  "I will not upbraid you," she
went on in a hard, strained voice.  "No, I--I will be silent.  I swear I
will.  Now, Dudley, tell me the truth."

"I have met no woman more beautiful than yourself, Claudia," Chisholm
answered in a deep tone.  "You have no rival within my heart."

"I don't believe it!" she cried fiercely.  "You