"Since you were her friend--"

"Her friend!" He stood up impatiently. "You speak as if she had
had only one--the most famous woman of her day!" He moved vaguely
about the room, bending down to look at some books on the table.
"I hope," he added, "you didn't give that as a reason, by the
way?"

"A reason?"

"For not going. A woman who gives reasons for getting out of
social obligations is sure to make herself unpopular or
ridiculous.

The words were uncalculated; but in an instant he saw that they
had strangely bridged the distance between his wife and himself.
He felt her close on him, like a panting foe; and her answer was a
flash that showed the hand on the trigger.

"I seem," she said from the threshold, "to have done both in
giving my reason to you."


The fact that they were dining out that evening made it easy for
him to avoid Alexa till she came downstairs in her opera-cloak.
Mrs. Touchett, who was going to the same dinner, had offered to
call for her, and Glennard, refusing a precarious seat between the
ladies' draperies, followed on foot. The evening was
interminable. The reading at the Waldorf, at which all the women
had been present, had revived the discussion of the "Aubyn