Nancy watched her with eyes grown strangely quiet, almost
steely--watched her as one might watch an ant. She had the look of one
whose will had been made suddenly to stand aside by some great inner
tumult.

When her caller had gone she dropped back into the chair, absently
pulling a glove through the fingers of one hand--her bag and parasol on
the floor at her feet. One might have thought her on the point of
leaving instead of having just come. The shadows were deepening in the
corners of the room and about her half-shut eyes.

A long time she listened to the animated voices of the brothers. At last
the doors were pushed apart and they came out, Allan with his hand on
Bernal's shoulder.

"There's your bag--now hurry upstairs--the maid will show you where."

As Bernal went out, Nancy looked up at her husband with a manner
curiously quiet.

"Well, Nance--" He stepped to the door to see if Bernal was out of
hearing--"Bernal pleases me in the way he talks about the old
gentleman's estate. Either he is most reasonable, or I have never known
my true power over men."

Her face was inscrutable. Indeed, she only half heard.

"Mrs. Covil has been telling me some of your broader views on divorce."

The words shot from her lips with the crispness of an arrow, going