Suddenly Malling resolved on a very bold stroke.

“But I’m a man,” he said, as if that obvious fact shattered her contention.

“What has that got to do with it?” she said, in obvious surprise.

“Because I do not understand.”

For a moment she was silent.  He thought he read what was passing through her mind, as he knew he had read her character.  She was one of those women who must be proud of their men, who love to be ruled, but only by a conqueror, who delight to sink themselves, but in power, not in impotence.  And now she was confronted by the shipwreck not merely of her hopes, but also of her belief.  She saw a hulk drifting at the mercy of the waves that, perhaps, would soon engulf it.  But she was not only despairing, she was raging too.  For she was a woman with nervous force in her, and it is force that rages in the moments of despair, seeking, perhaps unconsciously, some means of action and finding none.

“Why should there not be some hope?” asked Malling, quietly.

“To-morrow is Sunday.  If you go to morning church at St. Joseph’s, and then to evening church, you will see if there is any hope.”

“To evening church?”

“Yes, yes.”

She got up.

“You are going?”

“I must.  Forgive me!”

She held out her hand.

“But—­”

“No, don’t come with me, please.”

“If I go to St. Joseph’s to-morrow, afterward may I see you again?”

“If you think it’s worth while.”

Her face twisted.  Hastily she pulled down her veil, turned away and left him.

VI

Malling went the next day to morning and evening service at St. Joseph’s.  He was not invited to lunch in Onslow Gardens, and he did not see Lady Sophia.  On the whole, he was glad of this.  He had enough to keep in his mind that day.  The matter in which he was interested seemed growing before his eyes, like a thing coming out of the earth, but now beginning to thrust itself up into regions where perhaps it would eventually be hidden in darkness, with the great company of mysteries whose unraveling is beyond the capacity of man.

He had now, he felt sure, a clear comprehension of Lady Sophia.  Their short interview at Burlington House had been illuminating.  She was a typical example of the Adam’s-rib woman; that is, of the woman who, intensely, almost exaggeratedly feminine, can live in any fullness only through another, and that other a man.  Through Mr. Harding Lady Sophia had hitherto lived, and had doubtless, in her view, triumphed.  Obviously a woman not free from a nervous vanity, and a woman of hungry ambition, her vanity and ambition had been fed by his growing notoriety, his increasing success and influence.  The rib had thrilled with the body to which it belonged.

But that time of happy emotion, of admiration, of keen looking forward, was the property of the past.  Lawn sleeves, purple, perhaps,—­for who is more hopeful than this type of woman in the golden moments of life?—­perhaps even an archiepiscopal throne faded from before the eyes they had gladdened—­the eyes of faith in a man.