"Parted!"

"We are separated."

"Legally?"

"Yes. We are—divorced."

Mrs. Verulam kissed Chloe pitifully.

"Oh, my poor Chloe! And so soon! How dreadful to have to divorce one's husband almost before the honeymoon was over."

Chloe's cheeks flushed more darkly.

"How rapidly you jump to conclusions, Daisy!" she said, almost irritably. "I remember now you used to do the same thing in Paris."

"Jump! But——"

[Pg 27]

[Pg 27]

"I did not say I divorced Mr. Van Adam. Now did I? Did I? Oh, I do dislike these imputations!"

Mrs. Verulam opened her pretty mouth to gasp, shut it without gasping, and then remarked, severely: "I hope he divorced you for something American, Chloe."

"Now, what do you mean?"

"For one of those American actions that are considered culpable in married people in your country: wearing your hair the wrong colour, or talking without an American accent, or disliking clams or Thanksgiving Day, or something of that kind."

"No, it was not clams. Besides, I like them rather. No, Daisy, it was an—an English action I was divorced for."

Mrs. Verulam began to look exceedingly grave.

"English! Then it must have been something bad!"

"No, it wasn't! It was all a mistake. Mr. Van Adam was terribly jealous. You have never seen him, Daisy. But he is one of those men with a temperament. Never marry a man with a temperament—that's to say, if he loves you. And Huskinson did love me."

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