and invited us to dinner. Things were going wrong, indeed had been for some time between my wife and myself. I didn’t care about the people she seemed to like, and I didn’t like the Goldens, either of them, but I went, and at that first dinner we met the Denisthornes. I liked them both and we began to meet them everywhere around. Mrs. Denisthorne attracted me a good deal, and I knew I attracted her. I thought I was being careful—and then Denisthorne had to go to America.”
Dane picked up a stone and threw it down the hillside and watched it land in the head of a tree-fern.
“My wife and I had come to a stage where we could not go on. I did not know till afterwards that she had fallen in love with a rich Melbourne man, and that she was only too glad of an excuse to leave me and go back to Australia. And I think that before she went she must have asked Mrs. Golden to keep an eye on me. Mrs. Golden had been doing that. I suppose a man is a cad to belittle a woman who gets infatuated about him. I have tried to see the Mrs. Goldens of the world as a doctor sees them. But it isn’t easy. I would as soon be in a room with a boa constrictor smiling pleasantly at me as I would with Mrs. Golden. She was clever enough while my wife was there not to let her see anything. After she was gone she went off her head. She kept on sending me invitations which I never accepted, but the trouble was, as they were at the head of everything, I kept meeting them everywhere. And she was very hospitable to Mrs. Denisthorne. Phew! She was a devil.”
“Well, dear, Mrs. Denisthorne and I fell down, of course. I’ve nothing to say for myself. I wanted her. My marriage had been very unhappy. It had been a penance. Serves me right. I went into those things without thinking. And so I cared a lot about Mrs. Denis-
