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 tains? He is a remarkable man, your husband, Madame; very remarkable. Full of power, charm, seduction.—But he is severe, too; very severe.'

'Dick severe? Do you think so?' And Jill laughed, leaning back her head, holding her cigarette lightly and looking from beneath her lashes at the old lady.

Madame de Lamouderie leaned forward with a mysterious smile. 'He frightens me,' she confided. 'I tremble before him!'

'But how horrid of Dick! What has he been doing?'

'He has done nothing,' said Madame de Lamouderie. 'It is I who do things: wrong things. I commit blunders. He makes me feel it.'

'I can't think of Dick as a mentor!' said Jill. 'You must snub him if he behaves badly. You mustn't let him frighten you.'

'Ah; it is easy for you to say so, young and beautiful as you are. If I could recover, if only for an hour, my lost youth, the tables might be turned, that I own!' said the old lady ruefully. 'As it is, his are all the advantages, and he makes me feel it. He does not come to-day because I have displeased him. I did not think so before; but it is clear to me now.'

'But you are quite, quite mistaken,' said Jill, and there was only kindness in her voice as she thus reassured her. 'I know you haven't displeased him. He'd have told me if you had. He's frightfully keen on your portrait, too. The only reason he hasn't come this afternoon is that it's such a splendid day for landscape.