As she said "My husband," delight took her, absurdly like Julia's. She checked a laugh at it.

Osborn had gone out to lunch.

"Did they know where?"

"I heard him telephone, booking a table for two at the Royal Red," one of the men said, and bit off his words suddenly as he caught the humorous warning look of the other. The look said: "We're all the same; don't get the poor fellow into trouble."

She understood it and again checked a laugh. She thanked them, jumped into the taxicab, and as the two men hurried after her, vying with each other as to which should do her the service of closing the door, she leaned forward and said buoyantly:

"Yes, you've given my husband away badly! The table _wasn't_ for me! Tell the driver to go to the Royal Red."

She could joke about the matter, so complete she felt her power to be.

She had in her, strong and vital, an irresistible feeling of achievements to come, as if nothing in the world could defeat her purpose, nor gainsay her will; it was like an inspiration which cannot be wrong. And as she entered the restaurant, and swept her eyes over the ground floor, she found at once those whom she looked for--her husband and the other woman.

As she went forward slowly, calm now, confident and at ease, she remembered, with a rising and fierce sense of satisfaction, the raven hair, the high shoulders and white face, the attractive insolence of her rival. They had been before upon the same battle-ground; but now the battle was level; nay, it was more than level; it waxed in favour of the wife, who, with every weapon to her hand, advanced leisurely to employ them against the woman who had none save that of her stupid beauty, allied to the strategy of her greed.

Marie came right up and stood by their table before Osborn perceived her; then she smiled.

She stepped into the breach of silence promptly, with sweet speech.

"I hope," she said, "I'm not intruding? But I'm shopping, and I was told you had come here, and I wanted lunch, so I followed. Do introduce me to this lady and give me some."

He stammered, somehow:

"Miss Dates, my wife."

Marie sat down.

"Where are you?" she said, glancing at the menu. "The roast--I'll join you there. Do tell me I'm not intruding, both of you. I am conscious of this being a horrible thing to do and I want to be reassured."

"Delighted to see you," Roselle chimed glibly, sweeping the wife with a look of comprehending fury to which even her slug nature could rouse itself upon such an occasion.

"If you'd rung me up, dear," said Osborn to his wife, "I should have been charmed to take you anywhere you liked."

"And broken your appointment with me!" Roselle supplied suddenly, and the gage was down between the two women.

Roselle Dates eyed the wife warily and feared her. And the measure of her hate matched that of her fear. Leaning forward, her white chin on her white hands, she cooed across the table:

"But I'd have forgiven him, Mrs. Kerr, if it was only for the sake of the jolly time he gave me yesterday."

"At Brighton?" Marie smiled across at Osborn.

He nodded. "I told you I was going."

"Do you like the car?" Marie asked Roselle sweetly.

"She's a duck," said the other woman, her eyes snapping, "but of course yesterday wasn't my first acquaintance with her. I know her every trick well. When we were in New York people were so struck by her neatness in traffic."

Osborn started involuntarily, exclaiming as involuntarily:

"Roselle!"

"What?" she asked, turning a stare upon him.

He fidgeted uncomfortably. "Don't be an ass," he said. "Marie--"

"What, dear?" asked his wife.

Again he fidgeted. "When Miss Dates mentions being in New York--" he began.

"And Chicago and all through Canada from Montreal to the West," said Roselle, continuing upon the breakneck course she seemed to have chosen in a moment.

"She means to tell you," said Osborn doggedly, "that she was doing a concert tour which coincided almost, though not quite, with my movements, and that having met her on board, we--we did some motoring together."

Breathless, he awaited the working of the most amazing situation in which he had ever found himself, and he had not long to wait. He did not know how much his wife knew nor what might be her summing up; he did not know that during the night Roselle had slept upon the problem of himself and had concluded he was too good to lose; he did not understand in the least what motives were actuating these two women; the flaming and insolent resentment of Roselle at the other's mere presence; the calm and pretty pose of his wife. He gazed at each in embarrassed bewilderment, and Roselle, her chin still on her palms, and her eyes bright and stony, commented on his explanation. She drawled:

"Osborn, you're a liar. Your wife knows as well as I do that she could divorce you to-morrow."

"But Miss Dates would be a fool, which I am sure she is not," said the wife's pretty voice, "if she imagines I would do it."

Husband and wife looked at each other across the table, and the question in the eyes of one, the answer in the eyes of the other, were naked and unashamed. They could be read by the woman between them. And regardless of her presence, they asked and answered each other in eager words.

"Marie, do you want me?"

"Yes; I want you."

Osborn turned to Roselle Dates. He turned to her as to something tiresome, hindering the true business of the hour. "Roselle," he said crisply, "my wife wishes to lunch with me alone. Will you go; or shall we?"

"I'll go," she replied very slowly, "but I shall expect some sort of explanation."

He stood up and put on her coat and their eyes were almost level, looking right into each other's.

"An explanation? You won't get it," he whispered back.

"It's due to me. You're a rotter."

"There's nothing due to you," he replied with a sudden air of relief at the discovery.

An abounding idea of happiness to come filled him as he moved beside Roselle down the crowded restaurant. As they went he said: "It's all over; I'm a fool no longer. You understand there's only one woman in the world for me and that's my wife. And since she has some use for me again ... Good-bye!"

He held out his hand, but she refused it angrily. She stood, biting her lip, tapping her foot, her head averted, upon the kerb; her attitude of pique was amusingly familiar to him; often it had gained for her the gratification of some petulant desire; but now all that he wanted was to hurry back to the table they had left.

There were real things; and trash; well defined.

"Taxi!" he said in a ringing voice to the commissionaire.

"Where are you going, Roselle?"

"Home," she answered venomously.