She looked at him in surprise, too absorbed at present in her own thick relief of mind to be annoyed.
"How gloomy you are, Jack! I suppose Marie has put you in a bad temper. Did she give it you hot? Poor old man! tell me what she said."
"She said—eventually that is—that she was going to do nothing; that she would continue to live with me, and that I might go my own way and do exactly what I liked."
Mildred was rapidly stripping off her long suède gloves.
"Now, that is nicer than I expected of her," she said. "Of course one could have objected to nothing, to no condition she chose to impose, for we were absolutely in her power, and she might have bound you never to see me again. Do you think perhaps she has something up her sleeve on her own account?"
Jack leaned back in his chair.
"What do you mean exactly?" he asked.
"Dear Jack, how dull you are! Why, Jim Spencer of course. Has she come round to this policy of mutual tolerance? It is quite the best policy. Honesty is not in it!"
"No," said he. "I feel sure she has not."
Mildred laughed, and poured herself out some tea.