“Why, there was no harm in them.  I liked them!” explained the young man.

“People have no right to like those they don’t respect!”

Libby looked as if this were rather a new and droll idea.  But he seemed not to object to her tutoring him.  “Well,” he said, “as far as Mrs. Maynard was concerned, I don’t know that I liked her any more than I respected her.”

Grace ought to have frowned at this, but she had to check a smile in. order to say gravely, “I know she is disagreeable at times.  And she likes to share her sufferings with others, as you say.  But her husband was fully entitled to any share of them that he may have borne.  If he had been kinder to her, she wouldn’t be what and where she is now.”

“Kinder to her!” Libby exclaimed.  “He’s the kindest fellow in the world!  Now, Miss Breen,” he said earnestly, “I hope Mrs. Maynard hasn’t been talking against her husband to you?”

“Is it possible,” demanded Grace, “that you don’t know they’re separated, and that she’s going to take steps for a divorce?”

“A divorce?  No!  What in the world for?”

“I never talk gossip.  I thought of course she had told you”—­

“She never told me a word!  She was ashamed to do it!  She knows that I know Maynard was the best husband in the world to her.  All she told me was that he was out on his ranch, and she had come on here for her health.  It’s some ridiculous little thing that no reasonable woman would have dreamt of caring for.  It’s one of her caprices.  It’s her own fickleness.  She’s tired of him,—­or thinks she is, and that’s all about it.  Miss Breen, I beg you won’t believe anything against Maynard!”

“I don’t understand,” faltered Grace, astonished at his fervor; and the light it cast upon her first doubts of him.  “Of course, I only know the affair from her report, and I haven’t concerned myself in it, except as it affected her health.  And I don’t wish to misjudge him.  And I like your—­defending him,” she said, though it instantly seemed a patronizing thing to have said.  “But I couldn’t withhold my sympathy where I believed there had been neglect and systematic unkindness, and finally desertion.”

“Oh, I know Mrs. Maynard; I know her kind of talk.  I’ve seen Maynard’s neglect and unkindness, and I know just what his desertion would be.  If he’s left her, it’s because she wanted him to leave her; he did it to humor her, to please her.  I shall have a talk with Mrs. Maynard when we get back.”

“I ’m afraid I can’t allow it at present,” said Grace, very seriously.

“She is worse to-day.  Otherwise I should n’t be giving you this trouble.”

“Oh, it’s no trouble”—­“But I’m glad—­I’m glad we’ve had this understanding.  I’m very glad.  It makes me think worse of myself and better of—­others.”

Libby gave a laugh.  “And you like that?  You’re easily pleased.”

She remained grave.  “I ought to be able to tell you what I mean.  But it is n’t possible—­now.  Will you let me beg your pardon?” she urged, with impulsive earnestness.