marrying any woman he chooses. I think it very possible that he may
readjust his whole point of view."

The woman looked around her, and outside, where her victoria was waiting.
At last she had attained to an environment such as she had all her life
desired. The very idea that at any moment it might be swept away sent a
cold shiver through her. Borrowdean had a trick of speaking convincingly.
And besides--

"Who is the woman?" she asked.

"I had been wondering," Borrowdean said, "whether it would not be better
to tell you, so that you might be on your guard. The woman is the Duchess
of Lenchester."

She stared at him.

"You're in earnest?"

"Absolutely!"

Her face hardened. Whatever other feelings she may have had for
Mannering, she had lived so long with the thought that he belonged to
her, at least as a wage-earning animal, a person whose province it
was to make her ways smooth so far as his means permitted, that the
thought of losing him stirred in her a dull, jealous anger.

"I'd stop it!" she declared. "I'd go and tell her everything."

"I am not sure," Borrowdean continued, smoothly, "that that would be the