“What was more natural?” said Mrs. Nailor.  After all, Ferdy Wickersham was her real romance, and she was his, notwithstanding all the attentions he had paid Alice Yorke.  “Besides,” said the amiable lady, “though Norman Wentworth undoubtedly lavishes large sums on his wife, and gives her the means to gratify her extravagant tastes, I have observed that he is seen quite as much with Mrs. Lancaster as with her, and any woman of spirit will resent this.  You need not tell me that he would be so complacent over all that driving and strolling and box-giving that Ferdy does for her if he did not find his divertisement elsewhere.”

Mrs. Nailor even went to the extent of rallying Ferdy on the subject.

“You are a naughty boy.  You have no right to go around here making women fall in love with you as you do,” she said, with that pretended reproof which is a real encouragement.

“One might suppose I was like David, who slew his tens of thousands,” answered Ferdy.  “Which of my victims are you attempting to rescue?”

“You know?”

As Ferdy shook his head, she explained further.

“I don’t say that it isn’t natural she should find you more—­more—­sympathetic than a man who is engrossed in business when he is not engrossed in dangling about a pair of blue eyes; but you ought not to do it.  Think of her.”

“I thought you objected to my thinking of her?” said Mr. Wickersham, lightly.

Mrs. Nailor tapped him with her fan to show her displeasure.

“You are so provoking.  Why won’t you be serious?”

“Serious?  I never was more serious in my life.  Suppose I tell you I think of her all the time?” He looked at her keenly, then broke into a laugh as he read her delight in the speech.  “Don’t you think I am competent to attend to my own affairs, even if Louise Caldwell is the soft and unsophisticated creature you would make her?  I am glad you did not feel it necessary to caution me about her husband?” His eyes gave a flash.

Mrs. Nailor hastened to put herself right—­that is, on the side of the one present, for with her the absent was always in the wrong.

Wickersham improved his opportunities with the ability of a veteran.  Little by little he excited Mrs. Wentworth’s jealousy.  Norman, he said, necessarily saw a great deal of Alice Lancaster, for he was her business agent.  It was, perhaps, not necessary for him to see her every day, but it was natural that he should.  The arrow stuck and rankled.  And later, at an entertainment, when she saw Norman laughing and enjoying himself in a group of old friends, among whom was Alice Lancaster, Mrs. Norman was on fire with suspicion, and her attitude toward Alice Lancaster changed.

So, before Norman was aware of it, he found life completely changed for him.  As a boatman on a strange shore in the night-time drifts without knowing of it, he, in the absorption of his business, drifted away from his old relation without marking the process.  His wife had her life and friends, and he had his.  He made at times an effort to recover the old relation, but she was too firmly held in the grip of the life she had chosen for him to get her back.