I ever met. Where have you lived--what are your ideas? A stupid one of
my own--possibly!--has been to call your attention to a fact that it
takes some delicacy to touch upon. You've noticed, I suppose, that my
sister-in-law isn't the happiest woman in the world."

"Oh!"--Longmore made short work of it.

She seemed to measure his intelligence a little uncertainly. "You've
formed, I suppose," she nevertheless continued, "your conception of the
grounds of her discontent?"

"It hasn't required much forming. The grounds--or at least a specimen or
two of them--have simply stared me in the face."

Madame Clairin considered a moment with her eyes on him. "Yes--ces
choses-la se voient. My brother, in a single word, has the deplorable
habit of falling in love with other women. I don't judge him; I don't
judge my sister-in-law. I only permit myself to say that in her position
I would have managed otherwise. I'd either have kept my husband's
affection or I'd have frankly done without it. But my sister's an odd
compound; I don't profess to understand her. Therefore it is, in a
measure, that I appeal to you, her fellow countryman. Of course you'll
be surprised at my way of looking at the matter, and I admit that it's a
way in use only among people whose history--that of a race--has
cultivated in them the sense for high political solutions." She paused
and Longmore wondered where the history of her race was going to lead
her. But she clearly saw her course. "There has never been a galant
homme among us, I fear, who has not given his wife, even when she was
very charming, the right to be jealous. We know our history for ages
back, and the fact's established. It's not a very edifying one if you