“Very good picture.”

His tone was disagreeable. And he had not answered her appeal.

“Be fair, Gage.”

Very well, he would be fair.

“I haven’t the smallest sympathy with all this, Helen. I know you regard that as unreasonable. It may be that I am. But I don’t believe you’re bigger or better because of all this. You’ve done it from no spirit of conviction but because you were flattered into doing it. The Duffield girl is simply using you for her own convictions. With her they at least are convictions. But with you they’re not.”

“That’s quite enough, thanks, Gage.”

He was cruelly glad he had hurt her. How it helped the ache in his own heart!

Helen thought: “He’s jealous of Margaret. Terribly jealous. It’s abnormal and disgusting. What has happened to him?” She let him leave the house with what was almost a little life of spirits when he had gone. She had not time to sift these feelings of Gage now. Later, if they persisted. She wondered if he should see a doctor, thought for a moment of psycho-analysis, speculating as to whether that might set him straight. But the telephone began ringing frantically.

CHAPTER XII
GREGORY LECTURES

I