it was clear to me that after that i must as people say "have things out" with rachel. but before i could do anything of the sort the fürstin pounced upon me. she made me sit up that night after her other guests had gone to their rooms, in the cosy little turret apartment she called her study and devoted to the reading of whatever was most notorious in contemporary british fiction. "sit down," said she, "by the fire in that chair there and tell me all about it. it's no good your pretending you don't know what i mean. what are you up to with her, and why don't you go straight to your manifest destiny as a decent man should?"

"because manifestly it isn't my destiny," i said.

"stuff," said the fürstin.

"you know perfectly well why i am out of england."

"everybody knows—except of course quite young persons who are being carefully brought up."

"does she know?"

"she doesn't seem to."

"well, that's what i want to know."

"need she know?"

"well, it does seem rather essential——"

"i suppose if you think so——"

"will you tell her?"

"tell her yourself, if she must be told. down there in surrey, she must have seen things and heard things. but i don't see that she wants a lot of ancient history."

"if it is ancient history!"

"oh! two years and a half,—it's an era."

i made no answer to that, but sat staring into the fire while my cousin watched my face. at length i made my confession. "i don't think it is ancient history at all," i said. "i think if i met mary again now——"

"you mean lady mary justin?"

"of course."

"it would be good for your mind if you remembered to call her by her proper name.... you think if you met her again you two would begin to carry on. but you see,—you aren't going to meet her. everybody will see that doesn't happen."

"i mean that i—— well——"

"you'd better not say it. besides, it's nonsense. i doubt if you've given her a thought for weeks and weeks."

"until i came here perhaps that was almost nearly true. but you've stirred me up, sweet cousin, and old things, old memories and habits have come to the surface again. mary wrote herself over my life—in all sorts of places.... i can't tell you. i've never talked of her to anyone. i'm not able, very well, to talk about my feelings.... perhaps a man of my sort—doesn't love twice over."

i disregarded a note of dissent from my cousin. "that was all so magic, all my youth, all my hope, all the splendid adventure of it. why should one pretend?... i'm giving none of that to rachel. it isn't there any more to give...."

"one would think," remarked the fürstin, "there was no gift of healing."

she waited for me to speak, and then irritated by my silence struck at me sharply with that wicked little tongue of hers.

"do you think that lady mary justin thinks of you—as you think of her? do you think she hasn't settled down?"

i looked up at her quickly.

"she's just going to have a second child," the fürstin flung out.

yes, that did astonish me. i suppose my face showed it.

"that girl," said the fürstin, "that clean girl would have sooner died—ten thousand deaths.... and she's never—never been anything to you."

i think that for an instant she had been frightened at her own words. she was now quite angry and short of breath. she had contrived a rapid indignation against mary and myself.

"i didn't know mary had had any child at all," i said.

"this makes two," said the fürstin, and held up a brace of fingers, "with scarcely a year and a half between them. not much more anyhow.... it was natural, i suppose. a natural female indecency. i don't blame her. when a woman gives in she ought to do it thoroughly. but i don't see that it leaves you much scope for philandering, stephen, does it?... and there you are, and here is rachel. and why don't you make a clean job of your life?..."

"i didn't understand."

"i wonder what you imagined."

i reflected. "i wonder what i did. i suppose i thought of mary—just as i had left her—always."

i remained with my mind filled with confused images of mary, memories, astonishment....

i perceived the fürstin was talking.

"maundering about," she was saying, "like a huntsman without a horse.... you've got work to do—blood in your veins. i'm not one of your ignorant women, stephen. you ought to have a wife...."

"rachel's too good," i said, at the end of a pause and

perceiving i had to say something, "to be that sort of wife."

"no woman's too good for a man," said the fürstin von letzlingen with conviction. "it's what god made her for."