“Yes, I can excuse myself.”

“Then do so.  If you are particularly anxious to dine with Mr. Kennedy, you can easily do so at your club.”  In the tone of her voice, and the words she used, she hardly attempted to conceal her dislike of her husband.

“And now tell me about Miss Effingham,” he said.

“There is nothing for me to tell.”

“Yes there is;—­much to tell.  You need not spare me.  I do not pretend to deny to you that I have been hit hard,—­so hard, that I have been nearly knocked down; but it will not hurt me now to hear of it all.  Did she always love him?”

“I cannot say.  I think she did after her own fashion.”

“I sometimes think women would be less cruel,” he said, “if they knew how great is the anguish they can cause.”

“Has she been cruel to you?”

“I have nothing to complain of.  But if she loved Chiltern, why did she not tell him so at once?  And why—­”

“This is complaining, Mr. Finn.”

“I will not complain.  I would not even think of it, if I could help it.  Are they to be married soon?”

“In July;—­so they now say.”

“And where will they live?”

“Ah! no one can tell.  I do not think that they agree as yet as to that.  But if she has a strong wish Oswald will yield to it.  He was always generous.”

“I would not even have had a wish,—­except to have her with me.”

There was a pause for a moment, and then Lady Laura answered him with a touch of scorn in her voice,—­and with some scorn, too, in her eye:—­“That is all very well, Mr. Finn; but the season will not be over before there is some one else.”

“There you wrong me.”

“They tell me that you are already at Madame Goesler’s feet.”

“Madame Goesler!”

“What matters who it is as long as she is young and pretty, and has the interest attached to her of something more than ordinary position?  When men tell me of the cruelty of women, I think that no woman can be really cruel because no man is capable of suffering.  A woman, if she is thrown aside, does suffer.”

“Do you mean to tell me, then, that I am indifferent to Miss Effingham?” When he thus spoke, I wonder whether he had forgotten that he had ever declared to this very woman to whom he was speaking, a passion for herself.

“Psha!”

“It suits you, Lady Laura, to be harsh to me, but you are not speaking your thoughts.”

Then she lost all control of herself, and poured out to him the real truth that was in her.  “And whose thoughts did you speak when you and I were on the braes of Loughlinter?  Am I wrong in saying that change is easy to you, or have I grown to be so old that you can talk to me as though those far-away follies ought to be forgotten?  Was it so long ago?  Talk of love!  I tell you, sir, that your heart is one in which love can have no durable hold.  Violet Effingham!  There may be a dozen