“Oh, as to that, you can’t say anything to me that I am not perpetually saying to myself,” was her somewhat impetuous reply.  “Only there is a point when ill-temper becomes not only tormenting to me but degrading to herself....  Oh, if you only knew!”—­the speaker drew an indignant breath.  “I can hardly bring myself to speak of such miseres.  But everything excites her, everything makes her jealous.  It is a grievance that I should have a new dress, that Mr. Montresor should send me an order for the House of Commons, that Evelyn Crowborough should give me a Christmas present.  Last Christmas, Evelyn gave me these furs—­she is the only creature in London from whom I would accept a farthing or the value of a farthing.”

She paused, then rapidly threw him a question: 

“Why, do you suppose, did I take it from her?”

“She is your kinswoman,” said Wilfrid, quietly.

“Ah, you knew that!  Well, then, mayn’t Evelyn be kind to me, though I am what I am?  I reminded Lady Henry, but she only thought me a mean parasite, sponging on a duchess for presents above my station.  She said things hardly to be forgiven.  I was silent.  But I have never ceased to wear the furs.”

With what imperious will did the thin shoulders straighten themselves under the folds of chinchilla!  The cloak became symbolic, a flag not to be struck.

“I never answer back, please understand—­never,” she went on, hurriedly.  “You saw to-day how Lady Henry gave me her orders.  There is not a servant in the house with whom she would dare such a manner.  Did I resent it?”

“You behaved with great forbearance.  I watched you with admiration.”

“Ah, forbearance! I fear you don’t understand one of the strangest elements in the whole case.  I am afraid of Lady Henry, mortally afraid!  When she speaks to me I feel like a child who puts up its hands to ward off a blow.  My instinct is not merely to submit, but to grovel.  When you have had the youth that I had, when you have existed, learned, amused yourself on sufferance, when you have had somehow to maintain yourself among girls who had family, friends, money, name, while you—­”

Her voice stopped, resolutely silenced before it broke.  Sir Wilfrid uncomfortably felt that he had no sympathy to produce worthy of the claim that her whole personality seemed to make upon it.  But she recovered herself immediately.

“Now I think I had better give you an outline of the last six months,” she said, turning to him.  “Of course it is my side of the matter.  But you have heard Lady Henry’s.”

And with great composure she laid before him an outline of the chief quarrels and grievances which had embittered the life of the Bruton Street house during the period she had named.  It was a wretched story, and she clearly told it with repugnance and disgust.  There was in her tone a note of offended personal delicacy, as of one bemired against her will.