“Nancy!  She’ll stay with him forever.”

“Where is this flat?”

“I’ve promised not to tell.  They don’t want to be bothered by all of us.”

“They want to conceal their deplorable situation, of course.  Well, my dear, I can wait.  Six months from now I’ll ask them to dine to meet Linburne.  Christine’s dresses will be a little out of fashion, and they’ll come in a trolley car, and she’ll have a veil over her head—­”

“Six months from now Riatt may be on the way to making a nice little sum.  He has a very good thing, he thinks.”

“He’d better be quick about it.  A flat in summer!  Oh, the cinders on the window-sill, and the sun on the roof, and the knowledge that all of us are going out of town to lawns and lakes—­He’d better be quick, Ned.”

The motor had stopped before the door of Nancy’s little house which was arrayed in its summer dress of red and white awnings, and red and white window boxes.  The footman had rung the bell, and was waiting with his eye on the front door, so as to catch the right second for opening the door of the motor.

“Nancy,” said her brother, with real horror in his tone, “you talk as if you wanted her to fail.”

“I do.  I do, of course.”

“Why?  Do you hate her?”

Nancy nodded.  “Yes, I hate her now.  I didn’t used to.”

“It seems to me this is just the moment to admire her.  It may be foolish, but surely what she has done is noble, Nancy.”

The hall door opened and simultaneously the door of the motor, and Nancy, putting out one foot, said over her shoulder: 

“Oh, Ned, what a goose you are!  Don’t you know any woman would have done what she’s done, if she had the chance—­the real chance?”

She ran up the steps and into her house, leaving her brother staring after her in amazement.