"for I never was in better voice. And on Saturday I sing La Tosca. With the open mouth, too, as I've no other engagement for a fortnight."
"What are you going to do?"
"Go to my house on the river and throw sticks for my dogs. You've never been there yet, Mrs. Brereton. Do come down sometimes. I shall drive there on Saturday night after the opera."
Mrs. Brereton made a short calculation.
"I will; I should love to," she said. "I hear it is charming."
"A dozen basket chairs and two dozen dogs," said Madame Guardina.
"I adore dogs. Are you off? Good-bye. About the middle of next week?"
"Any day."
Mildred gave her a charming smile and turned to Jack.
"That's one good-natured thing this morning already," she said, "and it's barely ten yet. Pagani was just moving when I saw Guardina; he'll be gone before she gets to him."
"I wish you were half as good-natured to me," remarked Jack.
"Well, what can I do for you?"
"Tell me how to behave to a hopelessly unreasonable woman, who is one's wife!"
Mildred puckered her lips as if to whistle.
"Explain in five minutes," she said. "I can't really hold this untamed savage any longer. Come on, Jack; we'll canter – shall we call it? up to the end."
Whether Mildred called it a canter or not, it is not doubtful what other people would have called it. But even the heart of the restraining policeman must have been touched by the splendid vision that flew by him, Mildred sitting her horse as no other woman could, sitting a horse also that few could have sat at all, and treating its agitated toe-steps with less concern than a man in an arm-chair gives to a persistent fly on a summer afternoon. The consciousness that hundreds of people were looking at her added, if anything, to her unconcern; certainly also the fact that many who saw her saw also, and remarked, that Jack was with her gave an additional zest to her enjoyment. For her creed was that secrecy in this world was impossible, and the only way to prevent people talking in the way that mattered and was annoying was to do things quite openly. It mattered not in the least if people said, "Oh, we have always known that!" or if they always took it for granted; what did matter was if they said, "We have lately thought there must be something of the kind!" Trespassers can be prosecuted; length of possession constitutes a title.
They drew up at the top of the mile, and Mildred adjusted her hat.
"There," she said, "the cobwebs have been dispersed for the day. Now we'll go on talking. Explain, Jack. Why do you want treatment for Marie?"
Jack lit a cigarette.
"She makes scenes," he said, "and they bore me. She made one last night."
"What about?"
"I don't know that it's worth repeating, really," he said.
"Probably not, but you are going to tell me."
He looked at her a moment with his thin eyebrows drawn together in a frown, hit his horse rather savagely for an imaginary stumble, and reined it in again more sharply than was necessary.
"I don't the least like being dictated to, Mildred," he said. "Nobody adopts that tone with me – with any success, that is to say."
She laughed.
"Oh, my excellent friend," she said, "you really speak as if I was afraid of you. For goodness' sake, don't put on schoolmaster airs. You know perfectly well that doesn't go down. Don't hit your horse now; you are behaving like a sulky child that whips its doll. What was the scene about?"
"Did you see the infernal manner in which she walked off with Jim Spencer last night, driving him home in her brougham and saying she was going to Blanche Devereux'? That was her way of getting quits with me."
"Quits with you? What for?"
"For a conversation I had with her after lunch yesterday. I told her that if she was seen about with Jim Spencer people would talk, and if they talked it was absurd for her to keep up the sort of attitude she maintains towards society in general, saying that we are both fools and knaves."
Mildred made a gesture of despair.
"The stupidity of men really exceeds all bounds," she said. "I beg your pardon, that is by the way. You were saying that she walked off with Jim last night. I suppose you commented on that too, did you?"
He flushed angrily.
"If she imagines she is going to make a fool of me before all the world, the sooner she learns her mistake the better," said he.
"You said that to her?" asked Mildred in a tone in which "even despair was mild."
"Of course I did, or rather, I asked her whether she really went to see Blanche. She saw what I meant all right."
"You seem to imagine she is as great a fool as you," remarked Mildred.
He turned half round on his horse.
"I don't stand such language from any one," said he.
"Oh, for God's sake don't be absurd! You stand exactly what language I choose to use to you. Is it really possible, Jack, that you don't see what a dangerous and foolish game you are playing? Mon Dieu! mon Dieu! you are married to that pearl of a woman, and you think you can treat her like that. You aren't fit to tie her boot-laces, and – "
"I have no intention of trying."
"Don't be funny. I was saying you weren't fit to tie her boot-laces, but I can't expect you to see that. And you have practically told her you suspect her of an intrigue with Jim Spencer. Now, if she was the sort of woman you seem to think she is, that would be the very way to drive her into it. Personally, I wish she was, but she isn't, and we must make the best of it. But what you have done is to show her, if further demonstration were necessary, your own utter depravity. Of the sickening folly of that, I needn't speak. Go on: what did she say then?"
"She said she didn't care in the slightest degree whether I believed she went to Lady Devereux's or not. She also said that Jim was coming to lunch. So of course I shall go home to lunch."
Mildred laughed outright.
"You have the most wonderful power of choosing the only impossible thing to do or say," she remarked. "That is the one thing out of the question. The impeccable attitude of guardian angel, my dear Jack, is the one attitude that cannot be made to pose well. Nor have you the figure for it."
They rode on a little while in silence.
"Have your own way, then," he said at length.
"Of course I shall. Poor old Jack, how you do manage to put your foot in it! And I have to pull you out so often. Aren't you grateful to me?"
"Not particularly this moment."
"Well, you will be soon. You needn't tell me when you are. A good action is its own reward, and I am bursting with an approving conscience this morning. I've helped Guardina and Pagani, I've helped you."
"Yourself perhaps?"
"That
