"Don't think I want all for nothing! Don't imagine my happiness--my
success could be complete without--"

"Without a whisky and soda. Come and have one. I see my husband
coming at last."

"Damn!" muttered Samson under his breath.

She had expected her husband by the big gate, but he came through
the little one, and she caught sight of him at once because through the
corner of her eye she was watching some one else--Umra the beggar.
Umra departed through the little gate thirty seconds before her husband
entered it.

Blaine was so jubilant over a sample of crushed quartz he had brought
home with him that there was no concealing his high spirits. He was
even cordial to Samson, whom he detested, and so full of the milk of
human kindness toward everybody else that they all wanted to stay and
be amused by him. But Tess got rid of them at last by begging Samson
to go first ostentatiously and set them an example, which he did after
extracting a promise from her to see him tete-a-tete again at the
earliest opportunity.

Then Tess showed her husband the letter that Tom's dog had thrust
into her hand.

"You dine alone tonight, Dick, unless you prefer the club. I'm going at
once. Read this."

It was written in a fine Italic hand on expensive paper, with corrections