human emotions; which she did many times a week with certain gentlemen of
intellectual bent who had the habit of calling on her. She had never, to
the knowledge of her acquaintances, been shocked. But while she believed
that a great love carried, mysteriously concealed in its flame, its own
pardon, she had through some fifteen years of married life remained
faithful to Jerry Shorter: who was not, to say the least, a Lochinvar or
a Roland. Although she had had nervous prostration and was thirty-four,
she was undeniably pretty. She was of the suggestive, and not the
strong-minded type, and the secret of her strength with the other sex was
that she was in the habit of submitting her opinions for their approval.

"My dear," she said to Honora, "you may thank heaven that you are still
young enough to look beautiful in negligee. How far have you got? Have
you guessed of which woman Vivarce was the lover? And isn't it the most
exciting play you've ever read? Ned Carrington saw it in Paris, and
declares it frightened him into being good for a whole week!"

"Oh, Elsie," exclaimed Honora, apologetically, "I haven't read a word of
it."

Mrs. Shorter glanced at the pile of favours.

"How was the dance?" she asked. "I was too tired to go. Hugh Chiltern
offered to take me."

"I saw Mr. Chiltern there. I met him last winter at the Graingers'."

"He's staying with us," said Mrs. Shorter; "you know he's a sort of
cousin of Jerry's, and devoted to him. He turned up yesterday morning on
Dicky Farnham's yacht, in the midst of all that storm. It appears that