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120 he feels he has got to look out." Yes, she was distinctly, she was strangely, placid about it. "It's worse to have them now that she's his wife, don't you understand?" she pursued,as if he were really almost beginning to try her patience. "His difficulties aren't over," she nevertheless condescended further to mention.

She was irritating, decidedly; but he could always make the reflection that if she had been truly appointed to wear him out she would long since have done so. "What difficulties," he accordingly continued, "are you talking about?"

"Those my splendid action—for he grants perfectly that it is and will remain splendid—have caused for him." But her calmness, her positive swagger of complacency over it, was indeed amazing.

"Do you mean by your having so forced his hand?" Traffle had now no hesitation in risking.

"By my having forced hers," his wife presently returned. "By my glittering bribe, as he calls it."

He saw in a moment how she liked what her visitor had called things; yet it made him, himself, but want more. "She found your bribe so glittering that she couldn't resist it?"

"She couldn't resist it." And Jane sublimely stalked. "She consented to perform the condition attached—as I've mentioned to you—for enjoying it."

Traffle artfully considered. "If she has met you