"Fred and I make good backgrounds for each other, and, after all, that
is what is required. You answer to my need of companionship in another
direction, and since that side of my nature is unintelligible to my
husband, he is not defrauded, while I should be if I starved my desire
for such friendship, to please an idea like yours, that a wife should
find her all in her husband. Fortunately, Mr. Staggchase is a broader
man than you are."

"Thank you," Rangely retorted, with a faint tinge of annoyance visible,
despite his air of jocularity. "Arthur Fenton says a broad man is one
who can appreciate his own wife. If Mr. Staggchase does that"--

"Come," interrupted Mrs. Staggchase, smiling with the air of one who
has had quite enough of the topic, "don't you think the subject is
getting to be unfortunately personal? I have a favor to ask of you."

Rangely was too well aware of the uselessness of trying to direct the
conversation to make any attempt to continue the talk, which, moreover,
had taken a turn not at all to his liking. He settled himself in his
chair, in an attitude of easy attention.

"I am always delighted to do you a favor," he said. "It isn't often I
get a chance."

The relations between these two were not easy to understand, unless one
accepted the simplest possible theory of their friendship. It was, on
the part of Mrs. Staggchase, only one of a succession of platonic
intimacies with which her married life had been enriched. She found it
necessary to her enjoyment that some man should be her devoted admirer,