cuss her husband; in fact, she could think of no better ear in which to pour her troubled amazement than that of her husband's mother.
Lady Gregory was in, Dawson said over the telephone, and was not expecting visitors. She would be delighted to see Mrs. Eric.
If Louise had been accustomed to self-examination, she would have realized that she was less unhappy than she had been for some years. She was indeed conscious of an odd satisfaction. Eric, then, was less perfect than his friends and family believed. There was a chink in that shining armor, his light had suddenly become dimmed. That woman in Paris—she was not young—it had evidently been going on for years. Or was it the renewal of some old affair? Her informant had managed to convey to her that her husband's—"cousin did you say?"—had not looked—well—quite of their world. She was thankful for that. When Eric admired Lady Norah Thorpe-Taylor, or Mrs. Dennison, or that hideous, clever Madame Fonteyn, she resented it bitterly, for she knew they had what she had not—charm. So she scoffed at charm, and prided herself on having none, nor wishing to have.
But here was something different; here was a blemish in the fabric, a rotten spot brought for
