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equal standards, all along the line, is only tacit as yet, isn’t it?’

‘Can we hope for more than a tacit acceptance, I wonder?’ She tried to attain the tone of blithe detachment with which she and Clive, in the old days, would have discussed such themes. ‘Women are so handicapped by nature that it’s difficult to imagine a time when equal standards wouldn’t be really an injury to them.—Where is she to give the lectures? I might be able to go up for them?’ She must go on talking; but Clive would know as well as she did that she had no intention of attending Hester’s lectures.

‘At Oriana’s;—Mrs. Travers’s—you know,’ said Clive.

They had reached the bottom of the hill and were now following the little path that led out to the Green. How terse was Clive’s voice. Hester was there between them. Monica seemed to see her eyes following them, and now with reprobation.

‘Oh, is that little creature married? She looks such a child—with her bright doll face. I imagined that she and Mr. Gales were engaged.’

Clive paused for a moment and then with a resolution not hidden from his mother’s ear, answered: ‘She’s left her husband and she and Gales live to-