“Have you considered what my standard would look like if I turned my best friend out of the house—­a man I’ve known all my life—­just because my wife doesn’t happen to approve of him?  I know nothing about your Eliotts; but if Edie can stand him, I should think you might.”

“I,” said Anne coldly, “am not in love with him.”

He frowned, and a dull flush of anger coloured the frown.  “I must say, your standard is a remarkable one if it permits you to say things like that.”

“I would not have said it but for what you told me yourself.”

“What did I tell you?”

“That Edith cared for him.”

He remembered.

“If I did tell you that, it was because I thought you cared for Edie.”

“I do care for her.”

“You’ve rather a strange way of showing it.  I wonder if you realise how much she did care?  What it must have meant to her when she got ill?  What it meant to him?  Have you the remotest conception of the infernal hardship of it?”

“I know it was hard.”

“Forgive me; you don’t know, or you wouldn’t be so hard on both of them.”

“It isn’t I who am hard.”

“Isn’t it?  When you’re just proposing to stop Gorst’s coming here?”

“It’s not I that’s stopping him.  It’s his own conduct.  He is hard on himself, and he is hard on her.  There’s nobody else to blame.”

“Do you mean to say you think I’m actually going to tell him not to come any more?”

“My dear, it’s the least you can do for me after—­”

“After what?”

“After everything.”

“After letting you in for marrying me, you mean.  And as I suppose poor Edie was to blame for that, it’s the least she can do for you to give him up.  Is that it?  Seeing him is about the only pleasure that’s left to her, but that doesn’t come into it, does it?”

She was silent.

“Well, and what am I to think of you for all this?”

“I cannot help what you think of me,” said she with the stress of despair.

“Well, I don’t think anything, as it happens.  But, if you were capable of understanding in the least what you’re trying to do, I should think you a hard, obstinate, cruel woman.  What I’m chiefly struck with is your extreme simplicity.  I suppose I mustn’t be surprised at your wanting to turn Gorst out; but how you could imagine for one moment that I would do it—­No, that’s beyond me.”

“I can only say I shall not receive him.  If he comes into the house, I shall go out of it.”

“Well—­” said Majendie judicially, as if she had certainly hit upon a wise solution.

“If he dines here I must dine at the Eliotts’.”

“Well—­and you’ll like that, won’t you?  And I shall like having Gorst, and so will Edie, and Gorst will like seeing her, and everybody will be pleased.”

Overhead Mr. Gorst burst into a dance measure, so hilarious that it seemed the very cry of his delight.